Hollow of the Blue Moon
by RaeAdnan
Summary: Ulquiorra does not believe in what he cannot see or touch; Erin retains the mysterious ability to feel and reason like a living human. He doesn't understand this, but Erin does not remember much from her early days as a Hollow and the answers may very well lie in that buried past. Together they search for the meaning behind the mysterious "Heart" they once had.
1. Prologue

_From the Void all things came_

_And to the Void all things shall return_

_For all of creation came from nothing_

_So to nothing all creation must return_


	2. Chapter 1

Life is a funny thing, isn't it? All of a sudden you're thrust into the cold, bright world, and just as suddenly you can be taken from that world and thrown into one just as cold, but much, much darker. Not because the sun is gone, but because every reason to be happy has been torn from you.

With death comes heartbreak, loss, fear, isolation and guilt. When these feelings become too much, they can rot a soul away and transform them into something less human... something evil... demons...

Or to be politically correct, Hollows.

A Hollow is a spirit missing its heart, and losing the heart-the very thing that makes one human-loses with it, the appearance of being human. You give yourself over to the darkness and allow it to mold you, hide you away and let the evil of your soul rampage, free of guilt. Hollows don't think or feel remorse; all they know is loss, and this loss produces a hunger so deep and insatiable, an eternity of devouring souls of the living and newly dead can't come close to filling the void left behind.

After all, voids are eternal, unending and dark.

Voids can never be filled, only added to, and they will never give back what they take.

Erin paused, listening to the wind, her talons digging into the sand with muted anxiety. Sleep plagued her, wanting her to lay down and drift off, but she knew if she did that now she would be a sitting target; strange dreams haunted her of places and people and things she didn't know and yet were strongly familiar to her, as if in a past life she went theree and met them and lived it. This was not unsual for her though, since an Adjucha is comprised of the condensed bodies of many, many lesser Hollows and often times memories overlapped, usually those of he dominant personality that ruled the Menos. Her dominant, the original Erin, was sweet and kind and caring, even for a Hollow, and she felt that blended into the wild, assertive, independant traits that had stemmed from the ranks within her, which made her curious how such a kind heart would descend in the first place, let alone dominate an Adjucha body. She didn't mind though, as Erin was incredibly strong, even for an Adjucha, because of her dominant self; this satisfied her not only because of her Hollow pride, but because of one of the things she couldn't remember.

Weeks passed since her birth from the husk of her Gillian and they were filled with visions, thoughts and dreams that kept her up at night-hours, confusing her, drawing her out into the desert on some strange crusade, as if something out there were calling out to her to return. But what? After a while, she started to ignore it and list it as typical new-born confusion as her new mind and body fell into place and routine and that it would disappear eventually as she retained control of herself and squashed all other roiling souls into dust.

Still, this did not quiet her anxiety. Something was coming and she didn't know what or how she knew. It would reach her soon. Erin contemplated running or flying away, but she was no coward and wanted to face this mystery threat no matter what happened to ensure it wouldn't come back and haunt her later. Just then, when she decided to wait for whatever was coming, she heard a distressed screech from somewhere nearby-a Hollow in danger. Otherwise known as easy lunch.

On her lazy days Erin liked to drop in on the ridiculous Hollow brawls that popped up around her and pick off the losers instead of fight herself, not because she's a coward or because she's weak, she just gets lazy sometimes, as all people do. So she shook herself loose and planted her huge, bird-like hind feet into the soft, white sand beneath her and reared back, spreading the mazzive wings on her back and leaping into the air with a sharp crack, stretching her _pesquisa_ out to locate her prey; it took only minutes for her to find the two brawlers and drop in on them, watching a monstrous snake-like Hollow coil around a smaller, helpless beach-ball of a creature that cried out defiantly.

That call made Erin hesitate a second, feeling a sharp pain in her body; her heart went out to the little beast-as much as her heart could, as Hollows had no hearts according to them-and she dropped down, much like a falcon, her scream startling the wrestling creatures for just a second. In that second, her colossal weight pounded into the unsuspecting snake, crushing its torso and cutting its screech off into a low gurgle as she tore into it, feasting like a starving man, not allowing anything to escape her snapping teeth save for the end of the tail which hung skewered between her normally immobile jaws, feeling the normal boost in her power that accompanied a meal. Then she turned to the injured Hollow and watched it yelp and try to escape, the right side of its body torn to shreds and bleeding everywhere, the white sands staining black and clinging to its devastated form, making it seem like it was dissolving.

It whimpered, scooting away and hissing as she approached; Erin hesitated, then flicked her head and tossed the tail at the creature, hearing it thud against the sand mutedly. "There," she stated, watching it; the Hollow froze, its gazed flickering between her and the tail and back. "Eat it," she commanded, seeing it jump and then drag itself closer to the appendage. "It will help heal you faster than normal."

The little Hollow gulped down the tail and not even a second later, it was back on its feet, shaking off the little fiasco from before and trotting in a small circle, testing itself.

Pleased, Erin said in a low but gentle command, "Now go," and watched it run off into Hueco Mundo in a hurry. _Why did I do that?_ she wondered, sitting on her haunches and staring at the white sand at her feet.

"Curious," a deep, smooth voice said behind her quite suddenly. Erin jumped and rounded, her body bristling as she looked up to the moon-once perfect and bright, now blotted by a small, dark smudge high above-a deep growl resonating from her throat as her back arched in warning, not unlike a cat. The smudge vanished a second and she threw out her _pesquisa_, feeling a stab of panic when she couldn't sense the intruder, the foreboding aura of earlier catching up to her full force; the figure reappeared not far from her and she snorted upon seeing how miniscule he was. "You received nothing," he went on calmly, hands in his pockets, "yet you saved that trash's life without any regard to the consequences. Such behavior is very un-Hollow-like."

Erin growled louder, arching her back and fanning her wings up, trying to gauge her enemy's power. He wasn't very big, but his uncanny resemblance to a human was unnerving, his skin as with as ivory, hair black as the endless night sky and eyes as piercing and cold as cut emeralds, devoid of all emotion; she found familiarity in those eyes, but mostly she felt hostile, as the cyan tear lines down his cheeks and the broken _kabuto_ with the single horn sitting on his head could only mean one thing: _Arrancar_. A Hollow that broke its mask to obtain _shinigami-_like abilities and a power boost that went beyond anything a Menos could achieve-even a Vasto Lorde.

"Perhaps you don't understand me," he mused plainly, never taking his eyes off of her. "As an Adjucha, it is normal to be capable of thought and speech and self-awareness, but perhaps you are trash as well and this assignment was for not."

"What assignment?" she hissed, tensing to spring at him, her fight or flight response choosing the former, even if she stood no chance whatsoever.

"You do speak," he pointed out, shifting his weight slightly and casually drawing one hand from his pockets; Erin knew this to be his battle-ready give instinctively, so she readied for him to attack.

"Yeah, and? Answer my question. What assignment?"

"The one assigned to me by my lord, Sosuke Aizen."

Smart ass

, she thought bitterly, though in a way his dry attitude amused her; thankfully her masked face didn't change with her emotions. "Details?"

"They are none of your concern." He studied his query carefully, assessing her. She was big, as was normal for an Adjucha, but she was bone white everywhere except for the sky-like hue that covered the underside of her wings and lower body, the pattern stretching along her sides and joining at her abdomen to create one, long stripe that ran under her tail, which ended in a stiff, boney point; her joints were marked by similarly-colored, metallic balls that he couldn't be sure were her true joints and her anatomy was like that of a puzzle, or if they were merely decorative, and joined the muscular upper arms and legs to her twiggy, deer-like lower limbs, making her strong but agile; her front feet had five, bird-like fingers each ending in a crescent-shaped talon, while her feet only hads three, her weight up on her toes, light and efficient; her masked head was that of a dragon, with ridges and spines above grooves on either side that functioned as sonar receptors, picking up sound vibrations like the bones of the inner ear, and a separate lower jaw that did not move when she spoke, her teeth locked together in an impassable wall of thumb-length, needle-pointed fangs that seemed painful to even look at, while her eyes were black and marked by purple, downward-facing crescents, their depths a mesmerizing black void that was not unusual for a Hollow of any type, except in their depth of darkness, as if there were nothing within.

A Void.

His only problem was her lack of spirit pressure, which is what drew him to her in the first place, yet she was sitting at only a standard, trash-like level; it was not possible, he knew, for her as an Adjucha to be so weak, especially an Adjucha like her, so he assumed she was masking her power similar to the way he was, if not less refined. She was positioned to attack him, which would not pose an issue if he were not ordered to bring her back alive. "Come with me," he ordered, shifting away to show her she did not frighten him.

"Why?"

"My orders are to bring you to the fortress of Las Noches. Alive," he added upon seeing her shift backwards. "I am not negotiating. I am not asking. Come with me, now."

Erin said simply, "Bite me," before she charge forward with more speed than he had accounted for, her jaws hinged open and prepared to skewer him if his reflexes hadn't made him jump out of the way, a very brief flicker moving across his otherwise-stoney features.

She rebounded quickly and followed him, throwing herself forward to chomp, but he merely pushed off of the _reishi_-rich air and flipped over her back, landing softly in the sand behind her and lifting his free hand as she reared up like a horse and pivoted, throwing her weight and some _reiatsu_ forward in a shock wave which he avoided with a small hop; Erin charged again, but he was not fazed this time and merely swung his arm, back-handing her face and sending her careening away, kicking up a gigantic cloud of sand as she lay in a slight daze, trying to comprehend what just happened.

Getting hit was not something Erin was terribly familiar with and the ringing aftershock left her mildly disoriented as she rose shakily, trying to find the Arrancar and seeing double, one ear ringing loudly. "It's useless to fight," he taunted, back to his relaxed stance. "Just come and end this farce."

"Over my dead body," she grunted, shaking herself back to rights.

"That is not the arrangment," he retorted, feeling as if something was not right.

That's when Erin released her spirit pressure at him, trying to drive him off; he felt it hit him, but as he was the stronger of the pair, it hardly fazed him, though he did note the growth potential and that she was already naturally on par with a few of his comrades.

Dammit

, she cursed, knowing he wasn't bothered by her impressive power one bit, beginning to draw it in on itself with her mind. Being one of free spirit, the she-Hollow did not appreciate being controlled or told what to do one bit, though sometimes she went along with another merely to amuse them, she always had her own agenda that no one got in the way of, and having a random Arrancar-even a good-looking one-appear and order her around under mysterious circumstances was not something she enjoyed. Obviously.

"I am to bring you alive," the emerald-eyed Arrancar started, and her keen eyes saw his body ready for an attack, "but that does not mean I have to bring you in one piece."

It was a threat, she knew, and she roared in response, her voice launching a shock-wave of _reiatsu_ that slammed him and off-set his balance, a harsh glimpse passing through his eyes as she lept, wings beating once to carry her above him and tensed her claws, ready to maime; he dodged of course, but he stayed close enough to give her a swift, viscious kick ot the head, making her other ear ring, though thankfully she managed to stay upright this time.

"If I must, I'll sever each of your limbs one-by-one and drag your bleeding body back myself."

"Persistent little bastard."

He was quick, that was certain, but even she was surprised by how quickly his hand came up, forefinger charged with a bright green light that fired in an instant, her mind blown by how quickly he could charge his _cerro_ blast; for once, though, she didn't need to be quicker.

Erin had a special ability. One he was unaware of. One he just inadvertedly activated.

She let the beam come at her and raised her chest to aligne her Hollow hole with the path of the _cerro_, a black energy begining to swirl around it like a whirlpool, distorting the very light around her chest; the blast struck home and was immediately absorbed into her body without a scratch, his shock plainly etched into his marble features for a moment too long for it to be written off as a lapse in sight. Erin's sides had plain, white, rounded nubs along her ribs that were usually invisible against her skin, but now the markings lit up one-by-one, starting closest to her forelegs and quickly turning bright green until the boney tip of her tail changed color as well, green energy crackling around the boney end; she then stored the energy to for a moment, feeling her ear horns vibrate and hum as the power built, her will reaching out for the _reishi_-rich air and shaping it into the vague shape of an arrow atop her head as long as one of his arms, solid white but slowly turning a pale shade of green and crackling much the same as her tail had, the javelin of pure _reishi_ following the movement of her head exactly.

"Have a taste of your own medicine," she growled, lowering her upper body onto the sand to aim the arrow and setting him in her sights. The Arrancar tensed, his hand twitching slightly as he prepared himself, and she let fly, the arrow careening towards him like a bullet.

He did not move and he did not fire back, at least not that she could see, the sand creating a powerful cloud in the ensuing explosion that neutralized sight completely; Erin then unleashed the stored, charged _cerro_ back on its owner, punching through the cloud and seeing a figure get launched out the other side and land upright a few dozen yards away. Waiting, the dust settled and she saw, much to her dismay, that her unwelcome guest was still very much alive, though he had burns across his left side and shoulder, which was bare due to his white jacket being torn to shreds in the explosion; from the damage, he looked to have tried to deflect the arrow with his hand and then taken the full force of his returned _cerro mas_ while blinded, and he was still standing.

The hell are these guys made of?

she wondered, baffled.

Still standing, the green-eyed Arrancar straightened his back and started walking closer, his injured hand swinging at his side as his wounds started to slowly heal before her eyes, though it wasn't much of a surprise considering most Hollows had some form of regeneration or another. "That is a curious ability you have," he said, soon placing his once-injured hand back into his pocket and seeming altogether unfazed by her assault. "That arrow was more difficult to deflect than I assumed, and I was not expecting my _cerro_ to be bounced back like that. I felt the way your _reiatsu_ changed upon taking it in, which affected your attack's energy signature, which led me to believe you had incorporated my _cerro_ into it. An error of judgement on my part."

"And you blathered your assumptions because...?"

"Appealing to your reason. I can analyze and deconstruct your patterns, attacks and habits through meer observation, and therefore render you predictable and powerless. You cannot win. Acquiesce."

Erin rumbled, beating her tail into the ground and tossing her head in frustration, swearing. "Give me one good reason why!"

"Power," he told her simply, seeing how she froze suddenly and knowing he'd gotten her. "You will be turned into an Arrancar through a method proven to produce exceptional-quality in subjects and upon doing so, recruited into lord Aizen's army."

"Army?"

He closed his eyes briefly, refraining from answering. "All will be explained in time. Now will you come peacefully or must I resort to dismemberment?"

Erin hesitated, her guard lowering instantly, her thoughts racing. Power had driven her this far, or rather the search for it had, and though she could not place the reason behind it, she knew that she had to become as powerful as possible, as if it were the meaning in her life to do so, and the only thing that trumped a Vasto Lorde was an Arrancar. This she knew instinctively.

"Need I also add that becoming an Arrancar would put an end to the endless hunt to devour other trash? Your power would increase and become fixed, and you may discover new abilities, but the eternal need to devour and not be devoured would come to a sudden stop."

Erin looked over at him immediately. "Sold. I'm officially interested." He nodded. "Now was it so difficult to explain yourself?"

He nodded again and she rolled her eyes. "You would have learned eventually, and I am not fond of unnecessary chatter. Come." Turning, he vanished, standing in the air above her, waiting.

With a sigh, Erin spread her wings and took to the sky, joining him and keeping up with his swift, direct pace once he took off in the direction of Las Noches fortress, impressed even more with his speed. "So," she asked conversationally despite his earlier statement about disliking unnecessary chatter, "may I know your name now? I'm Erin."

There was no immediate reply, but just as she figured he was going to ignore her, his clear baritone voice said, "Cuatro Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer."

"Ulkiora Shifa," Erin repeated, testing his name. "Exotic. I like it. It fits you."

Ulquiorra merely grunted, lapsing into silence the rest of the journey.


	3. Chapter 2

**sorry it's not very long, but I haven't updated this in a while and I wanted everyone to know it's not on hiatus or anything, I've just been busy work on my Sengoku story, The Fangs of the Dragon. anyway, review and enjoy!**

Though she respected his preference for silence, total quiet bothered Erin despite the endless hush of Hueco Mundo dominating her memories-memories that disturbed and unsettled her; she needed some kind of noise or sound or she became aggitated, thus she often hummed or sang or spoke to herself to relieve her tension, much as she did now, quietly humming as she soared below Ulquiorra whose shadow on the ground below helped her keep track of him as her mind wandered aimlessly. Yes, she might be giving up some of her freedoms, but in exchange she was going to be granted power, and being a fair judge of character, she felt Ulquiorra wasn't lying about the arrangement, even if reading his face was almost impossible, therefore it would be worth it.

_Gotta work on that_, she told herself, head swaying side-to-side to the sound of her own song which was changing suddenly to include lyrics that came from nowhere; Erin had a very bad habit of losing focus quickly when her interest in something took a nosedive. "_Where are the heroes, in my time of need? Is my cry not loud enough or have they gone all numb? They just sit and stare out of the rain, thinking but not acting that they're not to blame..._"

Ulquiorra glanced below him, hearing the soft sound of her voice as it carried to him on the wind, breaking the usually-comfortable silence in a way he was unused to. He listened, trying to stay disinterested, but he had never heard singing before-actually, he'd never heard music period and never paid much attention during his jaunts to the human world, so this was a novel experience for him, and one that he, in his own way, appreciated it for what it was: a splash of color in an otherwise dull world. He listened to her soft voice, to how gentle it was and compared it to the vicious strength behind it when defending herself. Clearly she had different sides to her personality, and he wanted to figure out what drove those feelings, what birthed them, what allowed her to retain such human-like behavior.

One day his curiosity would be the death of him. For now, though, he feigned indifference, listening to her gentle melody as they travelled and picking apart the message contained within, trying to understand the meaning behind it until the song faded away and life resumed its dull routine once more.

"Hey," she suddenly called as the horizon broke before them, becoming uneven in a small part. "Looks like there are rock formations ahead. Planning to go around or above?"

"Above," he answered matter-of-factly, noting how keen her eyesight was to be able to discern what was ahead from this distance when he himself could only barely make out the shapes.

"Straight ahead?"

"Yes."

Feeling a surge of recklessness, Erin began to flap her wings harder, picking up speed slowly, her mischevious side showing itself for the first time in a long while. "Race you through the crags."

"Race?" the Arrancar repeated just as she began to accelerate, zooming ahead of him with an unprecedented burst of speed that prompted him to pick up his own already-impressive pace, watching the way her body seemed to shift from sturdy and flight-stable to something more lithe, like a winged serpent, her forearms hugging the underside of her belly and the rear hanging loosely, her body undulating with each beat of her massive wings that shone snowy and perfect in the eternal moonlight, bringing dark memories to his mind. _What does she expect to do?_ he wondered to himself, raising his altitude in order to skim over the tops of the canyons and plateaus that lay just ahead now and keep Erin in sight, calculating her wingspan against the gaps between formations and concluding that she was too large to be able to compensate her required lift effectively to be able to squeeze between rocks and outcroppings with ease.

She was going to hurt herself and he felt no inclination to stop her.

Unsurprisingly, the Adjucha was full of surprises. In her maneuverable mode of flight, Erin could weave, dive and dodge with the best, her body loosened in order to bend just well enough to avoid loosing her balance when turning and banking, which came very much in handy as she soared under the first stone arch that marked the edge of the canyon. Her guide stayed above, but even with her boobing about, twisting, ducking and looping about between the unusual formations, she managed to keep pace with him, her wings half-folding as she closed in on two sheer cliffs that sat side-by-side with a space barely open enough for her to squeeze through-at half her wingspan. Ulquiorra saw this and moved off to one side, assuming Erin would pull up and exit the canyon, as he wanted to avoid what would otherwise be a nasty mid-air collision.

Assuming.

He was quite shocked when she suddenly vanished against the cliffside, and baffled that there was no hint of an impact and that her _reiatsu_ signature was still moving below. Reaching the other side first, he turned, searching for her at the exit of the ravine between the cliffs, trying to see into the oppressive darkness; a rush of air and a triumphant cheer screeched below him, sending his _hakama_ and tailcoats flying about as the she-Hollow reemerged far below. She'd lost altitude, but her speed made it possible to shoot through the crack without need of her wings' beating, thus she turned sideways and skimmed the walls, slowly descending toward the sands below. Once oriented correctly, she flapped quickly and returned to the sky, spiraling upward with a cheerful whoop as the deadpan Arrancar joined her, a small tug in his chest warned him of incoming nostalgia.

Having been a flying Hollow at one point, Ulquiorra knew the urge to soar was always prevalent within him, as he would always be a creature of the sky, not the ground, and some days it got the better of him, driving him to leave the fortress to release the tension from himself; what he was not prepared for was for the familiar need to soar to be amplified merely by witnessing another take to and enjoy the sky in front of him. Flying Hollows were few, and he had not had the pleasure to see many pre-Arrancarification, so he surmised it was this reason that provoked him, and his duty to lead Erin to Las Noches is what kept him from giving in to the base instinct that slept inside him. He would never admit it, but in that moment, Ulquiorra Schiffer was _jealous_ of the pseudo-freedom Erin had-her desire of power ensured she wouuld not stray from him, so it was not true freedom, but she was freer than he.

He beat it back of course, as he was a Hollow once, and an Arrancar now, and therefore unable to feel such things as joy or jealousy-all that lay within him was despair. Despair for being the outcast, the different one, for his self-inflicted isolation; yes, depsair was the only thing he felt he was capable and justified in feeling at any given time, as he was depsair given form and therefore physical, and as he was physical he was real. No other feelings could be seen or felt by his hands, and so he did not believe in them or his ability to feel them within himself and any instances of something stirring within him were his own weakness of his mind trying to fool himself into believing otherwise. He only had a legacy of despair in his memory-nothing else to give him reason to believe he could feel anything more, as he had no memories of a human life to call on, like every other Hollow that survived its first half-decade.

Despair was real. Jealousy was not.

Even so, he was already accustomed to the fact that using _sonido_ in the air was not the same nor ever would be, and thus resigned himself to his fate, carrying on with his assignment in silence, restraining his instinct and ignoring Erin's cheerful half-freedom-induced joy as they closed in on Las Noches.

"Is that it?"

"Yes."

Erin tipped her head to one side, studying the blob on the horizon. "Can't be more than a day away now."

Ulquiorra turned his head slightly. "Do not be so certain. Even keen eyes can be fooled."

She sighed. Over the course of the last few hours, the Hollow woman had gotten used to her companion's cryptic statements and stopped expecting a straight answer whenever he felt like divulging her. That did not stop her from being baffled, of course, considering the structure she saw ahead was already quite big, she felt it couldn't be more than a day's flight from their current position. After all, how big could it be?

Wind shifted across the vast, snowy sandscape, kicking up little swirls and dust devils and carrying on it a scent-a scent that made Erin bristle and growl ferally. Her mind blanked and she lowered into a hunting crouch, digging her talons into the desert floor, pointing herself west. Ulquiorra turned his whole body towards her now and simply said, "Adjucha," expecting her to snap out of it, but instead she began a quick trekk off into the night, her body slung low, her _reiatsu_ crushed into a low level bordering on a common Hollow. He didn't appreciate being ignored, and with his assignment looming over his head, he followed her, keeping a fair distance behind; he knew a hunting Hollow was not a Hollow to cross paths with, and her abilities-if used in a prolonged fight-could be troublesome seeing as she effectively rendered his _cerro_ a moot point. So he relented, trailing behind her with ever-widening distance, but never letting her out of his sight as he searched for whatever beast she'd selected to devour; there were many options availible, yet curiously she ignored them all, seeming to march herself straight toward a specific target.

Eventually, the possibilities narrowed to three: two average Hollows and one Adjucha, which he assumed was her choice considering she was making a fairly straight path toward it, searching its scent right out of the air until she was close enough to navigate using her _pesquisa_. Erin was focused solely on her hunt, her body coiled, wings pressed flat into her back, jaws beginning to unhinge; something unsettled her about this reek, this one particular Hollow that she was tracking, and she wanted to know what, and then devour it so it couldn't unsettle her again. Very single-focused, this she-Hollow, when the situation demands. Pinning down her pattern of behavior would be more difficult that Ulquiorra realized, as there was no known way to know if she'd remain focused or for how long, or if her habit of changing course-applying to fighting style as well as train of thought-would make her predictability erratic. Of course, if anyone could find out, it was him, and seeing her hunt provided an excellent chance to observe.

Erin suddenly crouched low, hiding herself against a dune, her prey just beyond the crest of the rise; she bunched her muscles, ready to spring, using her nose as her guide. Deafening silence blanketed the desert, enough so to drive one insane, for the longest second of Ulquiorra's immortal life before, without warning, Erin sprang, a viscious roar tearing from her throat as she cleared the rise and pounced on the Hollow she'd tracked down. Black claws sank into dark flesh, one Adjucha's hunting cry melding into the other's pained shriek, the pair rolling across the sands, kicking up a cloud of dust as tentacles thrashed about, black blood splashing out and seeping deep into the ground. Ulquiorra used his _sonido_ to leap into the air and stand, his sharp eyes peeling apart the layers of the squabble one-at-a-time until he could make out the distinct shape of Erin who was coiled around the other Hollow like a snake, her teeth tearing pieces from it as it cried defiance, trying to shake her.

Watching Hollows kill each other could easily become a nasty affair, as this one was turning out to be, but using his sharp eyes and even sharper _pesquisa_ he was able to place a heavy bet on Erin to be the victor, as this other creature was trash compared to her. Now normally, Erin would have a slight debate within about killing another creature so blatantly, but luckily this time that little inner-Erin had shut up and let the inner-Hollow take control, overriding her other thoughts and feelings as she ripped this creature to pieces.

This particular abomination was a huge monster of a Hollow atop one of the boulders that sparsely dotted Hueco Mundo's landscape, pink and purple triangular patterns stretched from its toothy, permantent skull grin, down its sides and arms and legs, a mess of tentacles writhing from its back in white, purple and pink, its head tilted to one side as it tried to chomp at Erin's hind leg, its short neck her only saving grace. The dueling pair tumbled, the mess of tentacles writhing, trying to pry her off as she tore at them, searching for its fleshy back; she was slammed into the ground and her hold faltered, allowing the destroyed Hollow to attempt an escape, but the blood and injuries it had sustained proved too great and it collapsed a short distance away as its attacker righted herself and sprang without hesitation, jaws biting into neck and throat and talons ripping into flesh, black liquid forming a shallow pool aorund them.

It didn't last much longer after that and Erin devoured the remains quickly, her usual demeanor returing in leaps and bounds. Ulquiorra hadn't found out anything particularly useful or helpful in that little skirmish except that Erin relied too heavily on her brute strength to get the job done. He berated her silently for not taking vital strikes and ending the hunt more swiftly, indicating with a turn of his head that she should follow him again, which she obliged to doing, feeling slightly drowsy after such a fulfilling meal.

Oddly, though, she felt as if she'd tasted that Adjucha once before, long, long ago.


	4. Chapter 3

**yay, long chapter! things are getting interesting so my motivation is up!**

A painful crick was beginning to form in Erin's neck as she reared her head back, her flexible vertebrae allowing her to more or less lay her head between her shoulders as she stared wide-eyed up the massive-no, massive isn't enough-wall before her, still unable to see the top from where she stood. After a moment, she reared onto her hind legs and stretched upward, totally baffled by the gargantuan construct that stuck out like a sore thumb from the desert floor; dark _reishi _permeated the area, driving away most smaller creatures, but to her it only provoked a headache and slight dragging weight in her limbs as it crushed down on her. Ulquiorra stood silently by, eyeing her, curious about how was able to show interest in something as plain as a wall when most Hollows, even Adjuchas and Vasto Lordes, tended to ignore it for the energy that blanketed the very air around Las Noches. Indeed, she appeared to act much like a human child, ignoring what everyone else saw in favor of pointless observations. Whether this was an advanced form of reasoning or just sheer stupidity had yet to be reasoned.

"This thing is messing up my sense of scale," Erin commented, glancing around at the twiggy, dead trees that dotted the landscape and seeing how they were dwarfed by fortress until they appeared to be nothing more than toothpicks. "How long did it take to build this place? Jesus fucking Christ."

Not being attuned to identify rhetorical questions, Ulquiorra stated simply, "I do not know," before moving toward the massive set of doors just ahead that made the already small Arrancar even smaller in comparison. Raising his fist, he cast her a quick glance and said, "Enough staring," and she settled back down; he rapt out four quick knocks with the back of his hand that echoed within the foyer like thunder.

They waited a beat, anxiety beginning to settle in Erin's stomach and turn her recent meal sour as thoughts raced through her head at high speed: _What will it be like inside? How many other Hollows live here? How many Arrancar? How strong are they? I won't have to fight them or anything, will I? Coming here was a bad idea. Holy fuck, what's that smell?_

The great doors swung open with a deafening creak that made the ear crests of Erin's mask vibrate almost painfully, and with it came a rush of air that was almost visibly filled with _reishi_, Erin's body jerking only slightly under the sudden weight, but once more her attention was robbed by something less obivous but to her, even more important. A great stink had tumbled out along with the spirit energy and it made her bristle, her head lowering as defensive measures were triggered in her mind, her own _reiastu_ channeling out and forming a kind of semi-solid wall between herself and the smell without meaning to.

Ulquiorra's back straightened in recognition of her mood shift and he turned around, seeing how she'd gone the road of fight against nothing. Even so, he moved toward her carefully, putting himself dead center between her and the doorway, his voice measured as he went from sensing no _reishi _from her to getting hit with a dense cloud of it in the span of a single footstep. "Enough," he commanded, once more expecting her to obey him but not the least bit surprised when she didn't. "We must go. Now."

"_What_," she barked, twisting her head away but keeping ehr eye on the dark inner hallway, "is that _God awful_ stench?"

Once more, she proved to be overly observant of the wrong details; the energy was not what had her bristling as it did with most others, it was the smell that had upset her, which considering her ability to track solely by scent over miles of windless desert, it wasn't much of a surprise. This Adjucha was proving mroe and more interesting by the minute.

"That is the scent of many hundreds of Hollows and Arrancar, all living under one vast rule of the triad of _shinigmai_ who banded us together."

"_Sh... shinigami_?" Erin repeated, quivering as her anxiety reached a fever pitch. She couldn't remember ever having met one of the black-clad soul reapers before, and yet something within made her hate them with a burning fury, as if they'd wronged her before, taken something from her or hurt her.

"Lord Sosuke Aizen is the ruling god of Las Noches, our leader and the mastermind behind this operation. He and his subordinates, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tousen, have defected from the Soul Society in order to raise this army of Arrancar. You will do well to show difference and respect when you meet them." With that, the Fourth Espada led the way into the grand fortress, sensing Erin's hesitant tailing of him by the sound of her talons clicking on the hard floor.

Yet another massive door stood out starkly against the bleached halls of Las Noches, towering over the massive she-Hollow and her Arrancar guide, decorated with what appeared to be a rather stylized depiction of one Hollow eating another which in turn was eating the first; a symbol of the eternal struggle for power all Hollows faced here in Hueco Mundo. It was here where the stench of soul reapers was strongest, and here where Ulquiorra held his hand out, giving his charge a sideways glance and uttering, "Wait until you are summoned," before giving four more swift knocks on the righthand entry. These doors opened silently, blanketing the air with more _reishi_ and _shinigami_ funk; inside it was only dark, the Cuatro Espada disappearing inside quickly and quietly, the doors whispering closed behind him, leaving Erin completely alone.

She glanced down either end of the hallway, hoping someone would come by; isolation and anxiety didn't mix well within her and she was beginning to shake. Even so, after several minutes of no hide or hair of a soul, she sat on her haunches with a sharp sigh, bored to death. "Hurry back," she said to herself, knowing he couldn't hear.

Inside, Ulquiorra stopped in the center of the blackened room, under the single spotlight before the triad of throne-shaped columns, surrounded by his fellow Espada and their fraccions. He bowed and said, "Cuatro Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer. I have compelted my mission, lord Aizen." While straightening, he felt a sudden jolt move through his body, his chin jerking up just fractionally as it passed, stirring a small wave of curiosity in the back of his mind; he never got chills, yet that could only be what it was that he'd just felt. What could have caused it?

"Ulquiorra," a smooth, deep, arrogant voice he knew well drawled from out of the darkness above him, "well done. Show us what you have found out about our new sibling."

"Yes, lord Aizen." Without hesitation, the Espada reached up and gouged his own eyeball from its socket, the optic nerve detaching without struggle and leaving the orb in his palm as a nearly-perfect sphere of emerald and ivory for all of three seconds before it had seemly petrified from having been removed only to be crushed into dust that scattered into the windless room, revealing his thoughts and sights from his own point of view as he journeyed into the eternal night.

_Vast doors opened out into a flash of moonlight over empty sandscape, nothing for miles and miles._

**_My target lies to the south. I will start at the borderlands._**

_The images blurred as the weeks passed quickly, only to stop suddenly at a pool of water surrounded by boulders and sparse dead trees where traces of spirit energy remained, though they were very weak._

**_There is one that was here that's not like any other trash I've felt. The must be the one I'm searching for._**

_The trace was faint, but followable, as no other creature's energy had been by to marr the trail the sands provided, as the sand absorbed all reiatsu it touched, leaving a small, near-permanent imprint; it was this he followed. Again the images blurred, showing brief instances of coming across other Hollows he quickly defeated, hinting at a new branch to the trail until it finally rested at their encounter._

**_One of them is the Adjucha, but I have not felt spirit pressure this dense in anything lower than the Vasto Lordes._**

_Three Hollows struggled in a cloud of dust, one all thrashing tail, another beating wings and the third a rolly-polly little thing that could be roundhoused into a goalpost for being mistaken for a soccer ball. The brawl ended swiftly with the winged beast coming out victorious, sharp eyes providing highquality imagery even at a distance; eyes that bore witness to severely un-Hollow-like behavior as the reptile gave up the last piece of its kill to the dying beachball._

**_They are not of the same creature. Why waste power on trash?_**

_The Adjucha drew closer in a hurry, bristling at the sudden intrusion. No spirit pressure remained after the brawl, but even so it was an impressive specimen, white and blue and powerful; and female. The ensuing battle and negotiations passed, the impression of her _reiatsu_ remained, heavy and slow to evaporate, almost as if it were denser than air and magnetized._

**_Her power may be impressive but her control and execution are pathetic. Still, her potential is enormous and I have never before seen a dragon-Hollow like this. For once I've been sent for something worth the time spent searching instead of more trash._**

_The images rushed again, but noticably slower in order to chronical the return journey, notes on her flying skills and personality dubbed valid enough to warrant attention being duly noted as the images drew to a close with the Hollow being left in the hallway and a white palm blocking out the rest before going black._

Aizen sat with a bemused smirk on his face, as he always found Ulquiorra's snide remarks about his missions amusing and insightful. He rested his cheek on his hand and his elbow upon the arm of his throne, eyes still closed until the information stopped flowing-only then did he look back down at his loyal Espada. "So," he mused, sitting upright and back in his seat, "you found this mission to be worth your trouble, Ulquiorra?"

"Yes, sir," came the unhesitant reply; somewhere in the shadows someone scoffed.

Aizen also appreciated Cuatro's honesty, though if he wasn't one of the strongest Arrancar they'd found, the rouge _shinigami_ would have killed him long ago for impudence. "Is there anything more you wish to add on to your report?"

"No, sir."

"Alright then, bring her in."

Bowing, the Espada went back to the doors, a trained response from the numerous times he'd been in and out of the throne chamber. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Aizen had noticed two things while viewing Ulquiorra's interactions with the she-Hollow that no one else had probably even noticed: one was how innately curious Cuatro was about the Adjucha, which worked perfectly for him, and the other-which he would never admit-was that she was much stronger than he had predicted. Even by second-hand means, he felt her enormous growth just in the two Hollows she'd devoured en route, and she was still at Adjucha level. If she became Vasto Lorde, his calculations would become a moot point, as her will seemed to be far stronger than he'd hoped. Her unusual qualities could prove to be a blessing or a curse, depending on how he played his cards, and luckily, he always played his cards right.

But Sosuke Aizen would have to play this game very, very carefully.

His dwelling was interrupted as the great dragon herself entered the chamber, whispers going around that died with the shutting of the door, her bone white skin seeming to illuminate the pitch blackness. Beside her was Ulquiorra, a ghost in the milky light she reflected from the spotlight and completely at ease beside the garganutan Hollow-who was albeit smaller than most Adjucha, but still larger than a certain cocky panther had been-her empty eye sockets void of any indication of her mood or thoughts, which was interesting in and of itself.

Ulquiorra said something quietly to her and she entered the spotlight, he taking up his position in the shadowed crowd of silent onlookers, her gaze fixed upon Aizen himself, as if the dark-on-light effect didn't work on her. "Adjucha," he addressed casually, monitoring her dead-end spirit pressure, knowing it was a ruse.

"Yes?" she answered smoothly, tempering her tongue for the moment.

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"Erin."

"Erin...?" he prompted, seeing her shift. "Do you not have a full name, Erin?"

"Not one I'm inclined to share, no."

"Is that so?" His smirk became tighter, her attitude already bothersome.

"Yes."

He might need to put a short leash on this one, just to be safe. "Well, then, Erin," he went on, not giving a hint about his inner unrest, "do you know why I asked you to be brought here?"

"Not in so many words," she told him, looking off in the direction she sensed Ulquiorra to be in. "I was kept in the dark mostly, if you don't mind the pun. Something to do with an army, but that's all I know."

"And that it is," the _shinigami_ said, sensing her resistance and urge to flee. "I have a great plan in the works, and for it to happen, I need Arrancar. Strong Arrancar. I already have many, as you can tell, and I plan to gather more. And you, my dear, have enormous power that I wish to utilize."

As he expected, someone snorted, drawing attention as they shouted, "What power? I don't sense anything. Whatever it was that Ulquiorra saw was a fluke, and no Hollow in their right mind would contain so much of it!"

"Grimmjow," Aizen purred with false kindness, "I do understand why you feel that way, but I can assurre you, Erin is not like any other Hollow. My dear," he continued, drawing her attention back up to him, "if you'd be so kind."

Grinning under her mask, Erin mused, _So that's how he operates_, and focused back on the rude shadow that was sprawled in the darkness. "Maybe I'm not in my right mind," she pondered.

"Prove it!" the shadow named Grimmjow challenge.

She sniffed, holding her release for a second longer. "Sure thing, pussy cat."

He bellowed, "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!" and jumped up, but just as he did she let her energy go, blanketing the entire chamber with her _reiatsu_, feeling the weight of it herself and sensing the way everyone buckled under the unexpected surge.

Aizen was almost knocked breathless-almost-as her spirit pressure slammed into him, confirming his worst fear; Ulquiorra staggered slightly, shock-and-awed that her power had increased so significantly after devouring just that single Adjucha. He started to think that maybe she had gone easy on him during their fight before and this was her full force, but if she truely had not wanted to come with him, she would've done her best to resist him, which is what it had felt like at the time.

She truely did have an exponential growth rate.

Erin herself was slightly giddy at knowing her strength had increased again and that Grim-kitty had more or less stood up and collided with the wall of her spirit pressure, getting flattened back down into his seat; only a handful of those present didn't collapse or get knocked off their feet when it hit, and it made her wonder how strong they were in comparision, not surprised that Ulquiorra was among them.

Aizen gestured, trying to catch his breath, and said evenly, "Thank you, Erin. you may stop now," and very nearly sighed with relief when the oppressive blanket receeded, a few sparse groans ringing out and making him even more aware of his need to halt her progress before she got too powerful. "And with that unquestionable display of strength, I'm sure no one else will question my decision about personally requesting your presence. So said, my dear, you will be turned into an Arrancar, but not now."

"Why not?" she cut in, suddenly disappointed; that was why she'd come along.

He waved his hand, indicating patience. "The Hogyoku, the device I use to create immensely powerful Arrancar, is in a catatonic state at the moment, and the soonest it can be awoken is in three days. After your transformation you will assigned as a fraccion to one of my Espada and trained. Once you've been deemed ready, you will be tested and ranked against said Espada. Don't fret, my dear," he added on when she lowered her head nervously, "I have high expectations for you that I know you'll meet."

Sweeping his gaze around the room, Aizen mused, "Now then, do I have a volunteer to take on the task of being dear Erin's Espada?" It was a trick question of course, as he already had his choice, but he powed it as a fair question in order to let some of the more difficult of his followers feel like they still retained free will and therefore compliance; the Numeros that fell under the wieght of her pressure were already eliminated from the bid pool as being too weak to bring out her potential the correct way, two of the remaining were too proud to give a shit after that little display-and one hated women anyway-while another was too lazy to do anything, which left the only suitable canditates: his choice, Ulquiorra Schiffer, and Tier Halibel, both of whom he would be fine with taking on the task, but he knew Halibel had her hands full with her three fraccions at is were, and so there was only one choice, even though he was unlikely to volunteer himself.

Ulquiorra knew already what his lord had planned, and the effectiveness of the simplicity that went in to doing so was impressive, and he asked himself if he would be willing to skip the obvious next step and just volunteer himself, as he was going to end up having the dragon as his fraccion either way. Being able to monitor, explore and understand her and her abilities might help answer some of his questions, so it wasn't like he was opposed to it, he just wasn't sure if he should volunteer himself or wait. Feeling a gaze upon him, he looked down at Erin and found her looking right in his direction, acutely aware of where he was, and in a way, she looked pleading, wanting him to step forward; frankly, he didn't trust anyone else to do the job anyway, so when Aizen mused, "What? No one wants the honor?" he took a step up and saw, for only the briefest of instances, a little flicker of surprise move across his lord's eyes as whispers kicked up once again. Albeit he'd surprised himself a little at his innate curiosity about the she-Hollow, he knew he wouldn't stand for anyone else taking on the responsiblity.

"Ah, Ulquiorra," Aizen cooed, smoothing over his moment of lapsed capacity for emotional control, "I'd hoped you'd volunteer. So, you'd like to take on the task of bringing Erin's full capabilities out?"

"Yes, lord Aizen," he answered imediately, though his gaze never left the Adjucha down below as he studied every little shift in her posture that would denote her mood.

"What if I wanted to?" the familiar voice of Grimmjow called out, sneering in the darkness.

Though he could've answered if he wanted to, Aizen knew Ulquiorra would take it upon himself to silence the overbearing Arrancar, as their unspoken rivalry tended to bring out the slightly-more-aggrivated side of Ulquiorra-which isn't terribly different from the normal Ulquiorra, it just makes him more likely to answer his taunts-so he left him to it. "You fell under her _reiatsu_," Cuatro began, finally looking away from his new charge, his gaze piercing the darkness and finding home in Grimmjow's psyche. "Therefore, you are too weak to be of any use to her. Furthurmore, your destructive tendecies, pride and short temper make you less than ideal as a teacher, and her taunting had most likely stirred a greater desire to kill her than teach her. You were never an option, Grimmjow, so keep silent. Erin is my fraccion now." Erin shivered, realizing that this was the first time he'd ever used her name, and his smooth baritone voice turning out each letter gave her tingles.

"Well spoken, Ulquiorra," Aizen commended, his curiosity peaqued.

"Thank you, lord Aizen."

But Grimmjow was indignant and sputtering like an angry idiot, shouting curses and various other profanities while demanding that Ulquiorra come say that to his face; Aizen dismissed everyone and told Ulquiorra to show Erin around Las Noches, ignoring the troublemaker and heading off to do whatever it was he did with his time. Cuatro descended to the floor and approached his new fraccion, giving her a quick once over and closing his eyes.

"You did well keeping your mouth shut."

"Um, thanks," she muttered, following behind him as he walked around her toward the giant doors, feeling as the other shadows disappeared in ones and twos around them, not sure if that was an actual compliment or not. "And I'm not stupid. I know my limits. I like my head right where it is, thank you."

"Good."

The odd pair-Arrancar and Adjucha-entered the Las Noches dome, the sudden transition from subtle light to artificial sun making Erin stop, squeeze her dark eyes shut and scrunch up like a cat, a protesting churrl curling from her throat. "What the hell?" she hissed, stepping back into the shadows and finding spots in her vision.

"It is light," Ulquiorra said patiently, pausing and turning back toward her. "You should be familiar with it from Earth."

"I've never been on Earth," Erin explained, frowning to herself about the brightness. "At least not since I died. Not that I remember."

"I find that highly unlikely. It is your ridiculous amnesia that's getting in the way."

She grunted. "Probably. But even so, I haven't been in light for a long time. Give me a second."

He waited since they had plenty of time and he wasn't in a hurry as Erin slowly crept out into the artificial sunlight, her neck scrunching into her shoulders, her back arching so her chest and pelvis were accordioned together, turning herself into a compact little box, her tail sweeping with irritation. Making a note to keep away from it, Ulquiorra started a bit as the light hit her body at last, casting little blips of light all over the narrow, suspended walkway they stood on that connected two different halls within the dome, her skin shimmering like many cut diamonds.

Her skin reacts to light. The glowing in the throne chamber was just a more minute version of this.

"What the crap," Erin chirped, uncoiling and eyeing herself, turning in a baffled circle. "This has never happened before."

"Your body utilizes photo-refraction," Cuatro explained, as in awe of this event as he could be or let himself be, as he'd never seen a Hollow do this before. "To what purpose remains to be seen." Still, he ended up staring at her for some minutes with absolutely no thoughts until she shook, bristling.

"Quit it, you're wierding me out. Let's get back inside."

His neck ticked and he came out of his trance, unsettled by his sudden zone-out, his thoughts picking back up with a vengance. _All of my thoughts stopped. That's never happened before._ As unsusual and curious as that was, he put it away for later, not wanting to be distracted from his current task; there would be time later to study the sparkling effect all he wanted.

Erin, disturbed by her newfound oddity, marched along behind him, stealing glances back at her shimmering flank and scowling, wondering what the hell it was all about. Distracted as she was, nearly ran into Ulquiorra's back when he'd stopped dead in the path, hardly twenty feet from the other side; she'd caught herself when his presence registered in her personal bubble and she arched so as to not bump him as her feet caught up with her brain.

"Why'd you stop?" she inquired, noticing he was looking straight ahead. Following his vision, she tensed, seeing a tall, muscular man with short, messy, sky blue hair and a malicious grin, half his face covered by a skeletal jaw from a Hollow mask, a large hole gaping through his stomach blocking the walkway. The Arrancar-man's scent was familiar as well as his voice when he chortled, "Looky looky," and the five others around him all chuckled evilly under their breath.

"Grimmjow," Ulquiorra acknowledged with a sigh. "What are you doing?"

"None of your business," he shot back, cracking his knuckles. "I just want to talk with the lizard."

Erin growled sharply, the vibration shooting through the spada in front of her and vibrating the floor directly beneath them. "Not interested, pussy cat."

He snarled, "Watch it, gator, or I'll make a nice jacket out of you." His short brows knit together as he finally looked at Erin. "What the fuck is with the gay strobe light effect?"

"What the fuck is with your face?"

One of the Arrancar beside him snickered and Grimmjow kicked him, muttering, "Shut up, D. Roy," and glared at her.

Arching her back in challenge, Erin lowered her head to the ground and let out a long, rising half-roar, telling him to, "Come at me, bro," and he crouched a bit, grinning and accepting her offer.

Ulquiorra, of course, decided to intervene by holding his hand between them and chastising them both. "Grimmjow, enough, before lord Aizen learns of your terrorizing his protegy. Adjucha,"-Erin blanched, wondering why he didn't just say her name again-"he is the Sexta Esapada, not common trash, and though you have the power to you lack the application capacity necessary to stand up to him. Leave it be."

She sat on her haunches, deflated, and hung her head, muttering, "He started it."

"I'm finishing it. Grimmjow, move."

"Make me," Sexta retorted, flicking one of his hands; his fracciones stepped back, ready to intervene but willing to let him show off.

"Call us if you need us," Shawlong told him and Grimmjow scoffed.

"As if. Move it, Cuatro, I'm not interested in you right now."

For whatever insane reason, Grimmjow thought he could just walk right past Ulquiorra and get right to the point, but to his surprise, the Cuatro Espada stepped right in front of him, his intense eyes making Sexta pause. "Erin is my fraccion, she is under my care," the smaller Arrancar stated; Erin tipped her head, wondering why he'd said her name that time and not before.

"Big whoop, Cuatro," the bigger one snapped. "I don't want to fight you at the moment, Schiffer. Don't give me a reason to."

Meanwhile, while the two Espada exchanged words, Erin was readying a little trick she'd been working on, trying not to be obvious about it as it required a lot of her concentration to do; she'd gotten to know the nature of her spirit pressure quite well-especially the volitile part-and had been trying to utilize it for some time, but condensing it into compact shapes took time and focus, the constant turmoil of the many, many Hollows within her making it insanely difficult to work effeciently. As such, her best technique were _reiatsu _blocks, and her second _reiatsu_ spheres: or boom bubbles, as she liked to call them.

The denser she made her pressure, the harder it became, and the harder she made it, the more likely it was to fight back. While everyone had been distracted she'd been peeling her energy off and forming one such boom bubble at her feet, trying to shape it without looking at where it was and drawing attention. Eventually it was the size of a football and practically quivering with contained force-not that she could see it, she could only feel it-and she cleared her throat, interrupting the bickering duo and using her mind to scoot it across the ground, between them and then settled it between Grimmjow and his fracciones, half her attention devoted to simply keeping it contained for the moment.

"Look, as much as I'd love to have at it with you, pussy cat, we're in the middle of something and I don't feel like wasting time right now. Ulquiorra, let's just go somewhere else."

Cuatro nodded, having known there was no point in getting the blue-haired jackass to move if he didn't want to, and he turned away from Grimmjow and walked toward Erin; Grimm reared his head back a bit, having not expected Ulquiorra to just up and walk away from a fight like that. Once he was level with her, Erin jerked her chin a bit and Ulquiorra paused, turning back around, having caught the movement at the corner of his eye; Grimmjow raised his hands and made a "What?" gesture when suddenly there was a loud _pop_ like a firecracker and the six Arrancar went flying in different directions, Erin's densely-floating _reiatsu_ having enveloped Ulquiorra and neutralized the effect like she'd hoped before stuffing it away again.

Very, very faintly, as he heard the shocked wails of the unfortunate group as they were sent flying, a corner of Ulquiorra's mouth turned up, the side that Erin couldn't see, and he remarked, "Clever," and she raised her chin, happy.

The blast had K. the fracciones, but Grimmjow shook himself awake before he hit the ground and shouted, "STOP MOCKING ME!" while turning a summersault and rocketing back to the walkway, his fury directed at Erin; the sparkling effect of her skin distracted him for a moment as he closed in and having sensed his return, Erin had rounded, blocking him from Ulquiorra, her wings spread as she hastily threw together a wall of her _reiatsu_, trying to stop him, but Grimmjow literally punched right threw it, even though his arm erupted in blistering scratches and aimed right at her throat.

Saved only by her reflexes, Erin's wings folded in front of her and-with her spirit pressure on the rise-blocked his fist, if only barely. Ulquiorra, saving his questions for a later moment, used _sonido_ to come up behind the enraged Arrancar and roundhouse kicked him into the wall of the tower they had been heading toward where he stuck for a moment. The victorious pair were ready to depart when Erin's body prickled with awareness and she once more stepped between Ulquiorra and Grimmjow, who'd gotten free and launched a turquoise _cerro_ at him; one of her wings formed a curtain between him and the deadly beam of energy, the pair seeming to work as a funnel to draw the attack into the black swirling void in her chest, the little dots on her body lighting up once again with the color of the beam before fading.

Wondering why she did not return the attack like she had to him, her sparkling body seeming to take on a temporary blue shine for a moment, the Adjucha compeltely still as she concentrated, Grimmjow's rage almost palpable as he staggered across the walkway toward her; after a brief second of studying, Cuatro noticed she wasn't compeltely still: she was slowly pulling her body into a spring, her instinct probably fighting her sense as her self-preservation kicked in, driving her to devour the Arrancar that was endangering her.

Knowing it would be bad on his part to let it happen, Ulquiorra stepped up to her great, fanged jaws, almost completely ignoring the injured Espada that had gone down on one knee from pain despite his will to fight. Without really thinking about the fact he could've lost an arm doing so, he reached up and took hold of the little ridge at the tip of Erin's nose, bringing her face down closer to his level and looking right into her empty, black eyes. "Once more, Grimmjow is the Sexta Espada and much less disposable than Septimo, Octavo or Noveno. End him and you'll only cause trouble for yourself."

The raging cloud within her had died the moment he'd grabbed her by the nose, almost as if that were a trigger that broke her growing shift of consciousness, allowing her to finish forming the block that floated right above Grimmjow with a burst of ease before disorientation set in. "So he's the cutoff point?" she asked dreamily, feeling a little off as she came back to her senses.

"So to speak. Leave him be. His fracciones will make sure he's found, as long as you didn't kill them with that trick of yours."

"Doubtful, but possible," she quipped, glancing between him and Grimmjow who was panting and bleeding into his eyes, blinding him. She allowed herself to be tugged around by Ulquiorra, his hand gripping her by the nose firmly, still keeping half of her attention on the block she'd made. As they entered the dark hall and the distracting sparkle went away, Erin gently tugged herself free of her Espada partner, turning to look through the doorway at Sexta who'd begun stringing together a series of profanities that would impress truckers and sailors alike, demanding that they come back and fight him. "It's a pity he's such an idiot."

Ulquiorra grunted.

"May I?"

"Yes."

She released her hold on her block and watched as the next second passed with a horrendous series of _cracks_ and a cloud of dust that left Grimmjow Jaegerjaques stone cold knocked out in a small crater just big enough for him. "Whoops."

"Impressive."

"Should I go see if he needs to be scraped up?"

Ulquiorra slowly shook his head once, eyes closed. "I can still sense him. He's alive, though barely."

"Well, they say cat's have nine lives."

He hoped not. That would be a nightmare.


	5. Chapter 4

**so we get to see more of how silly Erin is because I don't know if I'm getting her personality consistent. she's basically free, emotional, stubborn but observant while suffering from a poor attention span. yeah, more or less. I just don't want her to seem too many-faced by accident. anyway... MOVING ON.**

Eventually, the night hours descended on Las Noches and found Erin still following Ulquiorra into his wing of the fortress, which to her looked like any other area except for the giant nuumber 4 painted next to the archway that marked the entrance. Everything beyond that point took on a barren, isolated feeling, as if no one ever wandered these halls except for Cuatro himself; at least most of the compound felt lived in. Especially compared to this.

Ulquiorra had remained quiet ever since the Grimmjow incident except to explain occasionally where they were, but she was fine with that. Being silent and being alone were different things, as she much preferred the silence with company than not, and she was too tired to bother with questions. She'd been feeling light headed and fighting had made her a little hungry already, which was odd because she never needed to eat so often before. _Can Hollows get sick?_ she wondered vaguely as they came to a door that slide into the wall rather than opened out and Ulquiorra glanced up to her with his clear, emerald eyes.

"This is your room while you are my fraccion."

"Oh?" she uttered, coming back from the headtrip she'd been taking.

"Mine is up the hall." Then he started to leave.

Erin peered into the room and saw it was completely empty, the windows along the back wall facing out into the desert and shining with moonlight that gave the white room an eerie glow. Once again, it reeked of isolation, and made the she-Hollow fidget. Abruptly, she called, "Ulquiorra?" and sensed him stop just down the hall, though he didn't do her the courtesy of turning. "I think maybe I should tell you I don't do well alone."

"Impossible," was all he said, though he showed no sign of ignoring her plight and leaving just yet.

"Yeah, yeah, I know the story already," she snapped, trotting up behind him. "Hollows are solitary creatures and whatnot and I was alone for a long time, blah. It was also driving me crazy. I don't know why, but I hate being alone, even though that's all I remember. There's a lot about myself I don't understand but I don't question it."

"Are you expecting me to do something about that?"

"N-no," she uttered, wondering why he seemed more... well... reserved now. More resistant. "I just... can I stay with you? I don't sleep well and lonliness might be the reason why."

Ulquiorra was confused, and he really disliked being so. First, Erin shows signs of a true emotional range on par with that of the living, able to express joy and enjoyment, compassion and other traits thought to be lost upon losing their "heart"-whatever that was-which he'd questioned from the get-go; then she protects him from Grimmjow's wrath, however unnecessary that may be; furthermore, the entire time this had been going on, he'd been indulging her more often than he did for anyone else, answering her, standing up for her. Things very un-Ulquiorra-like and in a way, it was worrying him why he let it happen. No, that wasn't right. He didn't "let" it happen, it just did, without any question on his part.

For a while he'd rationalized it was for the sake of understanding her because she was so odd, but that was seeming more and more ridiculous, especially when he had been merely a second away from allowing her to follow him without even thinking about it. This behavior was unusual and he didn't really like it, but shutting down and treating her like everyone else was difficult-_actually difficult_-and it only unsettled him more because he _couldn't_ treat her like any other soul. She was too different, and being a very intelligent ad visually-oriented person, Ulquiorra relied on his ability to see a great deal, and when there is little change from one day to the next and from one person to another, things tended to get boring in a heartbeat. Perhaps that's why they say ignorance is bliss; if one isn't intelligent enough to know better, everything becomes endlessly entertaining. Not so for him, however.

His new excuse was that Erin's uniqueness was rubbing off on him and he wanted to continue to appreciate that little change in his routine while it lasted. Yes, that had to be why. And so, he re-rationalized that for this reason, he would let Erin stay with him for a bit in order to understand her apparent dislike of being alone, which was very strange just by itself. Hollows were not pack creatures, most couldn't think past their own butthole let alone cooperate, and so isolation was never an issue. Especially for him. Ulquiorra Schiffer was the self-proclaimed king of solitary confinement.

"Ulquiorra?"

Erin's clear voice rocked him out of his thoughts and his shoulders twitched, his chin lifting. "Alright. I've considered it." Then he started walking again, though slightly quicker than was actually necessary.

"Wait, so that's a yes?"

He didn't answer, not sure how to.

Talons click-clicking once again, Erin stayed directly behind her Espada partner as he led her down the seemingly endless hallway for what seemed like a small eternity before they came to another door that was as green as Cuatro's eyes, vague shapes carved into it with a large 4 only adding to the obviousness of to whom the room behind belonged. This doorway was small though, so Erin would have to squeeze in with her wings tucked into her sides to clear it. Ulquiorra opened the door quietly and stepped inside, leaving her to figure out how to get in on her own, and when around the king-sized bed that dominated the assortment of furniture, its headboard made of white wood and pushed against the lefthand wall, making it the first thing seen upon entering. Practical, as he seemed to only use this space for sleeping, since the only other item of iterest was a large wardrobe situated on the opposite wall between two enromous windows that afforded a better view than her room had.

Bluish-green and white seemed to be his color pallette of choice, as his bedspread were turquoise and white, and the single, circular rug in the center of the room was emerald, apple and black, standing out in an otherwise monochrome cell of a living space. All this Erin noticed right away as she slithered in, folding into a sharp arch and shaking loose to get her body back to its normal, sturdy form before taking a few steps in and looking around, her tail flicking the door shut behind her. At least here the isolated feeling was less extreme and it made her feel better immediately, her great, dark eyes finding Ulquiorra with his back to her and sliding his teal _katana _from his waistband and setting it curve-up on a pair of hooks just beside his bed, right at hand if he needed it in an emergency. Then, without warning, he removed his jacket and tossed it into a shute hidden against the wall and toed his _waraji_ off, leaving him in only his _hakama_ and waistband, Erin's gaze riveted on him without her meaning to. She was a female after all, and he a male. Biologically it made sense she would stare when she liekd what she saw-if biology applied to Hollows at all, that is.

He was lean, that much she knew, but not thin, no-Ulquiorra was all ropey muscle and smooth lines, his skin as white as the walls of Las Noches and his hair seeming even blacker in the solitary moonlight against such a backdrop; when he turned, his eyes seemed to glow like beacons, their large, luminous, sorrowful appearance sending a jolt of awareness through her. This was the first time she noticed he seemed to have a look about him other than "dead", his hair seeming rather soft; this is also the first time she could recall ever having found herself so interested in another, having such obviously human thoughts that he would undoubtedly point out and mock if he could read minds.

Wait...

_You can't read my mind can you?_

He didn't seem to.

_No? Okay, good._

"Adjucha," he said, seeing her jump as if she hadn't been paying attention just now, her line of sight moving ever-so-slightly to his chest where the giant number 4 had been tattooed, indicating his rank as all Espada did.

"Why is there a four on your chest?" she asked before he could voice the question he'd been pondering all day. "Other than the obvious reason, that is."

"All Espada, those Arrancar bearing the numbers 1 through 10, wear a mark on their bodies somewhere indicating their rank. Should you ever become an Espada, you too will choose where to bear your sigil."

"Oh... ouch."

He grunted, trying not to admit he'd just indulged her again at expense of his own immediate questions, which he needed to stop doing. "Adjucha," he started again, seeing her jolt once more while her gaze had been upon him, prompting him to change his question more the moment, "why are you staring?"

"I'm not staring."

"You're staring. Why?"

She craned her neck to look up at the ceiling, childishly trying to make a point. "If I _were_ staring-which I wasn't-it would be because you have a..." Erin wondered how to explain without seeming like a pervert. "A very appealing body, and would merely wish to appreciate that, as I am a female."

Very faintly, Ulquiorra's brows knit. "Gender does not make a difference between Hollows. Biology is a moot point. Hollows do not mate, do not seek company and do not differentiate between sex."

"Well, I do-er, well, not the mating part, but the other two I do," the she-Hollow shot back, eyeing the window ledge above her for a second before leaping and finding enough room up there for her to lay down comfortably, her tail trailing down the wall as she curled herself into a half-moon and continued to watch him watch her curiously, appraising his form and lean grace. "If it weren't for the gaping hole in my chest to say otherwise, I'd think I wasn't even a Hollow to begin with considering the way you go on about it."

"Indeed," he agreed, finding himself tracing the sleek line of her back as she lay up on his window, casting a menacing and deformed shadow across his bed. "There is nothing else you are, however."

"Indeed," she mocked, sighing and following him as he went and sat on his bed. "Look, if I had any idea _why_ I apparently think and act so 'un-Hollow-like' I would tell you, but up until meeting you I had no idea I was so different."

"Then it is something that should be looked into," he said, ignoring her jab before adding as an afterthought, "_properly_."

Erin raised her head. "I caught that. What do you mean 'properly'?"

Ulquiorra approved of her attention to details; it made her less aggrivating to deal with to know she was intelligent. "I mean, it would be best for us both to keep your oddities between us. There is someone among the Espada who would delight in taking you apart to figure out how you function should he ever find out."

Groaning, "Great," Erin slammed her head into the wall beside her, cursing her luck. "Should I have a list of names of who I should watch out for?"

"All the Espada below my rank may be a threat to you."

"Oh, WONDERFUL. That would've been nice to know before I signed on."

Ulquiorra leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, lacing his long, ivory fingers together and laying his chin on them, still watching Erin watch him. "You are my fraccion. No one will hurt you without going through me. I take my duties very seriously."

Erin's head went down to lay on her crossed wrists slowly, her irritation evaporating quickly at this as she muttered, "I see that," before taking a deep breath and voicing loudly, "Thank you, Ulquiorra."

His back straightened. "What for?"

"For watching out for me. No ever has before. So thank you."

Sincere thanks was not something he was accustomed to-yes, Aizen thanked him for his hard work, but it never carried the weight of hers, never felt so real-and it effectively short-circuted his ability to think in a linear way, his mind choosing to completely circumnavigate the step that processed others' words and jumped right ahead to the question that had been on his lips before she cut him off before. "Why did you protect me earlier today?"

"Huh?"

Clearly his bare body was as distracting for her as hers in sunlight was for him. "No. It's of no consequence," he amended, his mind getting back into proper working order at last.

"What did you say?"

"I said it is nothing. Sleep. Tomorrow we enter the dome and I will drill you over basic techniques in order to have a control variable for comparison after your Arrancarification."

"No more exploring?" she asked, a little disappointed.

"There will time later for that. Sleep."

Sighing again, she curled up and watched him dim the light in his room and stretch out on his bed, head turned away, his skin once again luminescent in the darkness and moonlight. Finally, Erin had company while she slept. Finally, she had someone to wake up to. And that made her happy. "Goodnight, Ulquiorra."

He didn't answer.


	6. Chapter 5

The Las Noches dome was quite literally the size of a small city and almost two miles high at its peak, built to resemble Earth's sky during the daylight hours-a god-like act used by Aizen to demonstrate his mind and power, bringing sunlight where only the moon rules and letting only special chosen admire it. Here, the white sand almost shined and was warm to the touch on the surface even though it was no different from the cooler expanse that lay outside the walls, stretching into oblivion. Erin was enjoying the tingle in her toes as Ulquiorra led her into the center, far from all the constructs and halls and walkways that lined the outer edges, readying to test her basic capabilities in a controlled manner that doesn't involve compromising his personal safety.

But Erin was hungry and a little fruity in her loop and she tried to explain, but for some reason her Espada partner was being even more of a jerk than he had been, blatantly ignoring her in favor of his own thoughts. The only thing he said to her after they left his room was, "Stay here," when they reached his preferred training area while he walked a little ways further before facing her.

The Adjucha was pondering reasons for his relapse and thought it maybe had to do with his nightmare and the following discussion, but he wouldn't answer any of her questions so she couldn't say for certain and with only his back as a clue, she couldn't watch his face for those little indicating flickers she sometimes caught with her sharp gaze. "So what first, chief?" she called, hoping to get something from him.

"Basic combat," he answered her immediately; Erin's tail tip swished in the sand contently. "We will begin with the most basic of Hollow offensive capabilities. Show me your _cerro_."

Erin hesitated. "M-my _cerro_?"

"Yes," he said loudly, his patience already growing thin; today was not one of his better days. "I will judge your power by how much damage it does to me. Now use it."

"I," she drawled, turning her head away and wrapping her tail around her feet, "uh... I don't have a _cerro_... at least not my own _cerro_..."

This he doubted highly. "What do you mean, Adjucha?"

Embarrassed at her shortcoming, Erin hunched up, tail wound around her ankles like a belt, her tone pouty. "If I knew why, I would tell you. But in all my fighting and internal exploring, I've discovered that I have no basic Hollow techniques except _heirro_ and _pesquisa_. I don't have a normal _cerro_ or a _bala_. There's _cerro mas_ which you've felt first hand, and my other powers, but nothing like what you can do."

Surely she must be joking? "I do not appreciate being lied to, Adjucha."

"I swear I'm not lying!" she insisted, leaping into a half-fighting position as her temper flared. "I've tried and tried but I can only use _reflexion_ techniques. You want a _cerro_ you have to hit me with one first."

That had to be impossible. Every Hollow had the basic arsenal, and some developed certain abilities unique unto themselves yes, but he had never come across any that _didn't_ have them. "You are Hollow," he stated, now more confused than ever before, which he did _not_ like at all. "You should be able to."

"If I could I would, Ulquiorra. Believe me."

Well, there was one way to be sure. "Fine then. Spar with me and show me what you _can_ do, Adjucha."

"My name is Erin, dammit," she barked just before he disappeared from view. "Fuck." Slow to respond, Erin's _pesquisa_ network didn't have time to spread out from her basic level of awareness and so when she did find him, Ulquiorra was directly above her head, his index finger pointed straight at her as a green light built; she felt like she was staring down the barrel of a rifle.

The teal _cerro_ fired point-blank and kicked up a large cloud of dust which covered his midair summersault before he landed some feet behind her and turned, waiting to see the result of his surpise attack.

Amid the dirty puff of sand, Erin stood frozen with adrenaline-induced panic, her wings stretched into an odd angle over her head, having been used to block the beam before it could hit the most vulnerable part of her whole body other than the circular spheres on her joints. Pissed, she turned, folding her wings back into place as an angry tune began to curl through her mind, getting her pumped as she found her partner just watching, analyzing. "You are a massive asshole, you know that?"

"It is not the first time I've been called that."

"Figured not." Crouching, she began to circle, her tail writhing spastically.

Ulquiorra noted this, knowing personally how handy and aggrivating an extra prehensile appendage can be, slowly turning to follow her. Her _hierro_ was clearly very strong to have resisted such a close-range blast from his own _cerro_, and she was still only an Adjucha so she was evidently very sturdy.

Watching her was becoming a bad idea as her glistening skin was distracting him again, for some reason, but he knew it would be folly to take his eyes off of her for even a second. Suddenly, she feinted left and he followed just as she rebounded into the air, talons spread as she attempted to jump him, which, of course, would never work; he dodged backwards.

Just as she planned. Erin landed with a deceptively heavy _thud_ before her long, flexible tail arched over her back and came straight for him, which he'd been expecting at some point. Using the _reishi_-floating technique to change direction midair, he just avoided what may have been a lethal shot, the boney, solid arrow of her tail punching into the sand deeply before retreated and shooting out again and again as he _sonido_ed around her, noting the devastating force behind the simple attack and wondering if she'd noticed it wasn't going to work as it was too slow to do anything to him.

As she wasn't stupid, Erin knew immediately her scorpion-like attack would only keep him bouncing around but she could unleash it instinctively while she focused on making a fun little treat for him. Ulquiorra was unaware of her plan until he noticed how she was perfectly still except for her tail, and having seen how frozen she became when planning something, he threw his _pesquisa_ out and realized with a start that just below him on his left was a nasty little surprise; Erin felt the counter-proding in her own focus and released her hold on the boom bubble, feeling it connect as Cuatro leaped to the side, the violent tornado only serving to slash his clothes up on that side as she didn't make it as dense as before; she wasn't out to kill him.

While off-kilter from that little spook, Ulquiorra's focus wavered so that when his _fraccion_ took her chance, he found himself plastered against her head as she rammed into him, barreling him into the sand; only his reflexes saved him, his forearm serving as a shield between his body and her hard head, their gazes locked-which he was only sure of by noting the familiar feeling of meeting another's eyes despite hers being ususually empty; another enigma.

"You lack hesitation. That is good," he remarked, feeling her weight baring down on him until his arm began to quiver while meeting that force.

"Thanks," she huffed, grinning even though he couldn't see it. "You've got good reflexes. I haven't met anyone as fast as me before."

"Nor I," Cuatro admitted, knowing it was due to her as it was true. He specialized in speed to deliver devastating attacks, usually so swiftly his opponents were unable to counteract him. Not Erin. The challenge was enticing.

Her tail slipped under her legs and coiled around his body by burrowing into the sand, binding his other arm to his side, which he was unable to do anything about while so focused on not being crushed. Squeezing tightly, she lept upward, her wings making a sharp_ crack_ in the air as she careened straight up, the sound sending a hard jolt through his body as he felt the weightless sensastion he-again, in his own way-missed. The sparkling was shaking his focus again and so he hesitated one second too long as she reached the peak of her climb and immediately arced downward, wings flattened into her sides, dragging him along behind as they plummeted even faster than they climbed, heading straight for the ground.

With a decisive twist, Erin rolled forward just as the ground was within range, which slammed her captive right into the sand while she beat her wings once and touched down, wondering if maybe that was too much. Ulquiorra was decked in a crater, unmoving, his bright eyes closed; she approached, not sensing anything from him and worried she may have killed him accidently.

Suddenly, as she sniffed him, his power spiked and his eyes flew open, his hand grabbing onto the little ridge of her nose and causing her to freeze without warning, pushing upward and twisting so that he essentially _judo_-threw her onto her back, hearing her cough as she was laid out similarly to how he was. "You crafty bastard, how'd you do that?" she gasped, her wind knocked out.

"As Grimmjow has so frequently said," he told her, wondering why he was making such a stupid remark and ignoring her question, "payback is a bitch."

Erin laughed.

Ulquiorra's mouth twitched open a bit. He wasn't used to laughter. Was he being funny?

Erin's anger had abated quickly, her moods as ever-changing as the wind, and turned to amusment and joy now that she had someone she could fight with on equal grounds. Someone she _didn't_ want to eat, though food was sounding really good right then. None of the other Hollows she'd come across even remotely tested her, hardly made her do anything, and her only form of entertainment quickly became dull as her power continued to grow. Well, not any more. Since they weren't actually out to kill each other, she could actually have some fun with him.

Ulquiorra felt her _reiatsu_ coalesce just beside his head and for a heartbeat, he thought she was making a dumb move trying to form one of her little balls of fun so obviously close to him, but the density didn't get anywhere near dangerous levels before it popped with a quiet _poof_ sound, doing little more than ruffle his hair and cause a slight bit of an annoying sensation on his skin. He wanted to ask what she was doing when another formed with surprising speed right in front of his nose, propmting him to take and instinctive step backward before it went off; suddenly, they were being made and released in rapid succession at different points around him, although they were only really just harmless little bubbles that were annoying for their sheer numbers, not their power-which fluctuated between one and the next. A particularly dense one actually cut his cheek, but as he wiped the blood away it healed, leaving his skin as flawless as when they had begun.

Erin was able to make these little pockets with alarming speed, as they didn't require as much focus as the normal ones did. This she knew quite well, though not necessarily the function they were serving. They were mostly just entertaining to her since he was busy trying to get away from them, his movements becoming slower and slower, though he didn't seem tired.

Volitile was a good term for the nature of Erin's _reiatsu_, but it wasn't the only thing it was capable of. It had a naturally high spirit density to it and was in rather plain terms... sticky. The little bubbles were actually gluing her spirit pressure to his, creating an unfamiliar and intangible weight in his body that was becoming annoying and detrimental to his advantage. Speed was the key to his technique like devastating strength was to Yammy's and Grimmjow's; without it, he was the equivalent to a sitting duck. As much so as he can be.

Erin noticed this and wondered if it was another trick, but even if it was, she was prepared to get around it, laying her lower body into the sand and stretching both her neck and her wings out. With her focus switched, she couldn't make the bubbles anymore, but she'd moved him right into the line of fire, pulling her energy onto her head like she did before, forming the floating arrow that was her signature move. Not that she realized it, but her spread wings were also sparkling like the rest of her body, and holding them out for balance served to create a massive distraction, as the shining was amplified, immobilizing the unsuspecting Arrancar; this she noticed as she was expecting him to dodge or move around or even prepare himself for the attack, but he only stood there transfixed, as if he were lost in thoughts.

Her wings snapped back, dropping the distracting curtain just as she fired, restoring his senses just in time for his hand to come up and block the attack, losing yet another jacket to her onslaught, not that he really cared about that.

They both remained still, waiting to see if either were willing to continue; Ulquiorra lifted his arm; Erin braced, ready to charge forward; he held his hand up and said, "That is enough for now," and she stopped, flopping onto her haunches, head tilted.

"Already? I was having fun."

His brows drew together slightly while his arm lowered, the feeling returning as her _reiatsu_ began to evaporate at last. "I grow tired of this," he lied, not wanting to accept his weakened ability to fight nor try to ignore it.

"Oh," she huffed, tail flopping into the sand. "Well... did I do well?"

"This was not a test," he said, pocketing his hands and clenching his fists; a habit he had when under duress. "But," Cuatro then went on, as it was not in his nature to belittle the worthy, "you are very strong. As I previously surmised. I've also analyzed your..."

Damn that sparkling.

"Ulqu, you're zoning on me again," Erin murmured, waving her tail in front of his face.

Coming out of it with a jolt, he turned from her so that the distracting shimmer wouldn't get him again. "My point," he grunted. "The sparkling on your body appears to be some kind of glamour that neutralizes your opponent's ability to think or comprehend their environment. Quite effective but massively detrimental to your allies."

"Well, it's not like I can turn it off," she countered, frowning at his mood (?) and coming up behind him to put her face over his shoulder. "Be lovely if I could, but I can't."

He grunted, glancing at her masked face-the only part of her that didn't shine like a discoball.

"By the way, I'm starving."

His lips pursed slightly.

"Don't look at me that way. Fighting makes me hungry." That was only half-true, but true nonetheless.

The odd duo were taking an exit to a shortcut nearby by cutting across the dome's walkways when a sudden blanket of spirit pressure stopped them both. Up above was Grimmjow, all patched up and looking pissed as hell. Ulquiorra _tsk_ed and commented, being careful not to put her in his sights, "Szayelaporro does his job well."

"Who?" Erin responded, leaking her pressure and creating a wall in front of them as Grimmjow took off at them like a bottle rocket, nonethewiser.

"Octavo," he answered, completely ignoring Sexta. "The one I warned you about."

"Oh."

"DON'T YOU FUCKING IGNORE ME!" Grimmjow hollered, reappearing just in front of them.

Then suddenly: _crack_.

The big, blue lummox collided headfirst with Erin's little wall and knocked himself cold, falling still on the walkway in front of them as they continued their casual conversation, mocking his brash behavior with it.

"Maybe you should run down the list and give me a heads up before I get involved with someone I shouldn't."

"Maybe I shall."

They walked around the Arrancar and continued their witty banter-if that's what you could call it-nearly halfway across when he came to and realized he'd been duped again. Now beyond enraged, he lept up, ignoring the massive headache he had, and screamed, his spirit pressure skyrocketing and hitting the pair with enough force for them to be concerned. Whirling, Grimmjow yanked his electric blue _zanpakuto_ from its sheath and lay his hand on the flat side of it, fingers curled like claws as he shrieked, "I'M SICK OF BEING IGNORED BY YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH. STOP LOOKING DOWN ON ME. I AM NOT WEAK."

Thinking he'd have to step in again, Ulquiorra moved between them and touched the hilt of his own sword warningly, spekaing carefully, "Grimmjow, you know the Espada ranked fourth and higher cannot release their _zanpakuto_ within the walls of Las Noches without due cause. Do not give me cause."

Grimmjow's eyes widened slightly. "Stay the fuck outta this, Cuatro! I told you I'm not interested at you, it's the lizard with wings I've got a beef with."

Erin bristled and stomped forward, pushing Ulquiorra back with her wings and lowering her head, snorting. "I will tell you only once," she commanded, her voice ringing with a strange amount of authority that seemed somehow to beat physically into Sexta with each word, her power leaking out. "I am not a lizard. I am a DRAGON!"

Then, with as much warning as a car crash, she twisted and knocked Ulquiorra's feet out from under him, rolling him onto her shoulders and diving from the walkway, feeling him instinctively buckle down, pressing himself against her neck as she looped upward and stationed herself midair over the bewildered Espada on the walkway below. Taking a deep breath, she opened her jaws a let loose an ear-shattering roar laced with her _reiatsu_ that not only stunned Grimmjow, but it completely obliterated the walkway below him, sending him crashing into the ground far below.

Satisfied with her work, Erin zipped her pressure up and circled, her wings beating powerfully, cutting through the air like a knife. "Alright, there's an airborn exit around here, right? I don't feel like landing."

"Yes," Ulquiorra said, more than a little breathless. "Ahead."

"Sweet."

He stayed silent as they flew, oblivious to how ridiculous it must look for an Arrancar to be flying on a Hollow because he was so distracted-not by her sparkling for once-by the sensation of flying. Oh, how long had it been since he'd be able to stretch his _own_ wings? Far too long. As he'd stated before, Espada's Uno, Dos, Tres and Cuatro were not allowed to release within Las Noches, and preferably not in the dome either, as their dense spirit pressures could very easily destroy the fortress in its entirety. He also didn't have the ability to release while on missions, as everyone would know about his habit, since that information would be privvy to all those present at the time; time for himself, while abundant, usually restricted him to the fortress, and the intervals when Aizen was gone were a thing of the past now that his cover had been blown, so escaping for those short times would happen probably never.

He would have to enjoy this half-flying while it lasted.

And he did.

The rest of the day was spent on the hunt with Ulquiorra maintaining a specific vantage point that allowed him to track her by her spirit pressure only, as he was no longer terribly interested in tailing her like a shadow when he could use the time to mull over her strangeness and the effect it was having on his own being. Setting his senses on the back burner, he turned inward, running through his observations in rapid succession, trying to solve the enigma that was Erin-an act that proved more difficult than it should have been.

Once her belly was full yet again, Erin trotted back toward where she could see her Espada, content as a kitten in a window sill. Then, quite suddenly, her body buckled under the weight of a massive surge of power that was right on the verge of painful; a surge that actually almost knocked Ulquiorra out of the sky when he registered it. Without hesitation, he appeared next to Erin as the surge faded, watching her pick herself up from the ground and noting how she seemed to be laggy and exhausted.

"Adjucha," he started, wondering what that could have been, "what's wrong with you?"

"I," Erin panted, legs quivering; she felt nauseous, "I don't... know... Ulqu, I don't feel well..."

"Hollows do not get sick."

She screamed, "Well I feel sick!" before lowering her head, confused. "Ah... sorry... I don't... know where that... come from... ugh..." She dropped to her knees.

He knelt, laying his hand on her nose because it always seemed to clam her down. "The Hollow you devoured, did it have any unusual abilities?"

She thought a second. "Come to think of it... it did use corrosive acid."

"Then that is why. The acid is making you ill. Now get up."

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you."


	7. Chapter 6

**alright, interesting things have happened, and so we reach a climax chapter, which is slightly longer than usual, yay! :D and to my dear reader TenraiTsukuyomi, who has been paying so much attention to the details and it makes me so friggin' happy, i can say you are half-right about your theory. but this we will see in probably the next chapter. anyway, MOVING ON!**

That night, just as the first strands of dark isolation grabbed at him, Ulquiorra was ripped from his slumber by a disturbance; simultaneously, his mind registered sound, sensation and pressure in the blackness of his room, the moon overcast by clouds and robbing him of his vision until his hand flew out and instinctively found the smooth, raised panel on his wall that triggered the lights. Once on, he found the writhing, panting form of Erin on his floor, her throat churning out gutteral sounds that were similar to the sounds of a choking animal; she'd fallen from her perch on his window sill, which is what had initially woken him before her spirit pressure sky rocketed and began to fluctuate spastically as she tried to get up and move, though he couldn't be certain if she were awake or not.

Rising from his bed and determined to stop her bizarre episode, he went to her just as her power peaked and Cuatro found himself driven heavily to his knees under it; not to be stopped by it again, he let loose some of his own _reiatsu_ for the first time, which punched a hole through her own dense cloud and shook the walls of his wing but allowed him to withstand her pressure until it declined again, the large room already permeated with such dense energy, a human's soul would be crushed almost instantly if it entered. Erin croaked, kicking out and trying to find purchase on the stone floor but finding no such luck, one wing moving lazily as if she would try to fly, but her body had pinned her other between the floor and wall, so she looked rather pathetic.

Ulquiorra studied her for a moment, trying to determine if it was safe for him to approach when her head turned and she crooned, "Ulquiorra..." in the most heartbreaking way that would pain any normal person to hear; naturally, it didn't affect him. Not that way. It did, however, prompt him to kneel and lift her head in his arms, her movements slowing as she breathed, "It... burns... inside..."

He remained silent as the episode suddenly ended with Erin passing out on him, her pressure zipping up and her breath coming deep and slow, everything growing still as he brought his own _reiatsu_ down to its normal level, his mind working overtime to understand what had just happened. There was only one thing it could be. Although she couldn't hear him, Ulquiorra's voice cut through the eerie silence a simple, clear,

"I see."

Morning hadn't come as abruptly today as it normally did, as the lights in the Cuatro Espada's room had remained on through the night hours; only his biological clock saved him from waking late. With a start, he jerked awake, finding himself abnormally stiff and seated strangely. As he came to, Ulquiorra realized quickly that he was sitting at the foot of his bed, slouched over the sleeping form of Erin whose head was nestled on his lap still, one arm draped over her muzzle and acting like a pillow for him. With a sharp twitch, his neck cracked and alleviated some of his soreness while he dredged up the events of the night, slowly blinking sleep from his mind.

Erin had some kind of fit, this he knew, but the cause of it was something he could only guess at, though his guesses were usually correct. But after that, his fatigue had taken over and faded whatever had happened next until he was certain he was just making it up to fill the void in his memory. He recalled sitting there silently, gently running his hand along her nose ridge while he mulled over what had happened, wanting her to stay asleep so she wouldn't have another attack. After that, he must've thought himself into a coma because there was nothing else.

He did have a theory now, though, as to why her _reiatsu_ was fluctuating and why she was in pain, and he found it necessary to alert lord Aizen immediately so he could postpone the Arrancar-ification; as he started to get up, a little creaky from his poor choice in sleeping position, he felt her great head slide from his lap and hit the floor softly, her body twitching; she groaned quietly. That's when Ulquiorra noticed her colors had diminished over the course of the night, her hide dull and seeming saggy and dry; he moved quickly to change his clothes, never mind the shower, and told her sternly, "Get up."

Moaning, Erin wondered, "Why...?"

"We must see lord Aizen immediately."

"It hurts... I don't want to..."

He wasn't taking no for an answer-when did he ever? "Now, Adjucha. Yes, it hurts. Deal with it and get up or I will drag you there myself."

She wanted to flick her tail at him and say "Help yourself" but sensing something off about him, she acquiesced, much as she didn't want to, and got onto her shakey limbs one-by-one, feeling dizzy. "I can't see straight... I feel funny..."

"Stop complaining." Getting as suitable as he could, he turned on his heel and marched toward the door and said, "Come," without even waiting for her to respond, knowing she would follow on her own.

His pace was a brisk march that made his coattails flutter more than usual, his hands fisted in his pockets once again as he listened behind him for Erin's dragging _click-clack_, making sure she stayed upright; if she collapsed, he'd have to drag her, and he didn't want to waste time turning around to get her when everything was time-sensitive now. Thankfully, they made it without difficulty, though he did have to stop several times to wait for her to catch up, her body slowly beginning to give out on her which both confused and worried her-that she made certain he knew.

Once more at the great doors with the odd figures, Cuatro knocked four times and was admitted more slowly than he would've preferred, walking straight into the dimmness of the throne chamber and into the spotlight as Aizen's smooth voice purred with mild interest, "Ulquiorra? This is unusual for you."

"Forgive my intrusion, lord Aizen," he began, placing one arm over his body and bowing slightly, "but there has been a complication with Erin."

He sensed the _shinigami_ sit upright with muted quickness, his normally level voice laced with tension he was wise to ignore. "Complication? What happened?"

Erin drug her tired carcass into the room and tried to sit next to her Espada, her jaws unhinged as she struggled to breathe, feeling everything going numb slowly as her power began to slip away bit-by-bit. Ulquiorra spared her aglance before explaining, "This is what's wrong with her. I believe she's reached that point in her evolution once more and changing her before it is completed might have negative side-effects on her abilities."

But Aizen wasn't listening. He could feel the way her spirit pressure was roiling about inside her and with a jolt, he felt the Hogyoku nearby awaken, his fear quickly becoming a reality before him. Moving with forced ease, he reached over and opened the cylinder that he kept the mysterious item in and touched it softly, beseeching it with his heart.

Quite suddenly, Ulquiorra felt a rush around him and with a small sound of surprise, Erin was cut off from him, semi-opaque walls closing in around her; white bandages were coiling around her weakened body in a blur, with her having no energy left to fight it off, darkness claiming her body and mind until she was nothing more than a dragon-shaped mummy in a glass case. Confused once more, Ulquiorra glanced between his shadowy master and his fraccion, not understanding what had just happened; surely his lord knew that changing a Hollow when in such an unstable state carried more risks than it was worth?

"Lord Aizen, why have you chosen to continue with the Arrancar-ification?"

Aizen was sweating, but he didn't let even himself admit it, though he couldn't keep the tension from his voice this time as he stated simply, "Because I cannot allow Erin to become a Vasto Lorde." He prayed silently, _Don't let it be too late._

Implications hit Ulquiorra like a wrecking ball as he realized with severe shock that-despite hiding it well-Aizen was afraid.

Afraid of Erin.

Because Erin was stronger than he was.

_Don't let it be too late._

Ulquiorra had been instructed to go about his day as normal, which he did somewhat grudgingly; ever since Erin had arrived, his quaint little world had been turn upside-down, with more questions lingering around than answers. Getting back to a normal routine might be enjoyable for a while, but he couldn't for the life of him shake the anxiety that had taken root in his mind. Erin was on the verge of becoming the next level of Hollow: the rarest and most powerful of Menos, the fearsome Vasto Lorde; she was already powerful to begin with, and changing right before becoming an Arrancar would put her over the top and make her their greatest asset. Yet Aizen refused to let that happen. Why? Because the great Sosuke Aizen was afraid of a Menos.

In a way it was understandable, as her potential was unbelievable, but his awe of the _shinigami_ had plummeted considerably to think that he was afraid of being usurped by Erin. If he played his cards right, she'd be none the wiser to their immense difference in power, and so the threat would be nullified. He supposed it would be his job to continue weaving the lies and deceit into her before she figured it out, but now he really didn't care to. But the facade had to remain so long as he valued his life, so he deigned to remain under Aizen's thumb a while longer; perhaps he was worried over nothing and Erin emerged no stronger than Uno, what with her transition disrupting her power and all. It never paid to be cautious.

Ulquiorra stopped walking and looked behind himself. Aizen had been very specific about no one disturbing the transition in case it altered her in any way, which was unsual enough. He wasn't covering his tracks very well either, which was even more unusual. Surely the others would catch on and realize something was amiss?

Or perhaps he put too much faith in the minds of trash.

When had that happened?

Everything was dark. Erin was used to it normally, but with her standard darkness there came nothing else. But this? This darkness was laced with an easily indentifiable sensation known as "heart-stopping pain". Everything-absolutely _everything_-burned and ached and felt like it was being torn apart constantly, as if every cell in her body were exploding a once; then it would change to a crushing weight that pulled tighter and tighter, shrinking her down. To make it worse, there was no break, no pause, no warning. It all happened in the space of heartbeats-crush-explode-crush-explode-so that she had no time to even breathe, let alone scream; she doubted anyone was around to hear her anyway, as she couldn't sense anything.

She tried to struggle, tried to orient herself through the blaze burning within her body, tried to at least find a sense of time amid the chaos; her panic had made her fidgety, worrisome, she couldn't think as the voices in her head-all the many hundreds of thousands of Hollows she'd devoured and which had been devoured by them-screamed together, given at least that boon, the sound stagnated, gurgling, sort of fuzzy as if coming in waves. With that, there was no way for her to fight back.

He tried, he really did, but after two long days of having Erin at his side, Ulquiorra had gotten _used_ to her presence, to looking over his shoulder and finding her there, to having someone beside him who didn't turn away from him and who had witty, intelligent conversations to carry on with. Now he was alone again, surrounded by a trash-filled, empty world where he was the only one there for himself.

It was awful for him to find himself listening for a _click-clack_ behind him, to look for a flash fo white and blue or to wait for some sign she was near. He, Ulquiorra Schiffer, had gotten himself attached to someone. He'd never thought it was possible, never even considered the chance, that in this world of shadow and moon where everything is black and there is no color, he'd find another white being.

White that shined like the sun.

Erin felt a shift, a tug, some strange stillness in her exploding pain that brought a single thought to mind: Ulquiorra. Ever still and silent, the essence of solidarity. She missed him, and thinking of him brought a peace to her as she wondered what he was doing, what time it was, if maybe he was sleeping. She remembered staying awake at night and leaving the window to let the moonlight in so she could see him; yeah, it was probably creepy, but without him knowing she would crawl over and check up on him throughout the night. Suffering from regular nightmares, she was used to not sleeping or getting enough sleep, so every time she was disturbed, she'd get up and run a circuit around his bed, often doing it on autopilot, to make sure he wasn't having any more nightmares himself.

When he slept, Ulquiorra was surprisingly calm-looking-not expressionless, but calm. There was a distinct difference.

That calm was taking over as she pulled in on herself, pulled away from the pain, shrank, disappeared...

Ulquiorra reached his room and opened the door. He got ready to sleep as he always did, feeling unusually weary. What was wrong with him? Worrying about someone else was not in his nature and being alone was normal for him. Everything made sense before Erin arrived. But even though he wanted to have a grudge, he knew it was pointless; his world was upsidedown now and it wouldn't ever be right again.

Erin felt separated from the chaos around her now-relief at last!-but also small, like she was trapped in a too-large room. Her breath was hard, but she felt her strength returning slowly; she'd be able to break out soon. Lifting her hand seemed impossible, but she did it, her talons wanting to sharpen themselves on something, her body aching to be set free from this black prison she'd been put in. But as she poked into the darkness, snagging on the prison walls, she felt a jolt.

Suddenly, white flooded her prison. The bandages returned and she roared defiantly as they wrapped her up once more.

Today was better. Yes, all that had happened was that he had gotten used to having someone around, but now things seemed back to normal. The anxiety had gone away with a good night's sleep-"good" apart from the typical nightmare he claimed he didn't have-and now he just had to try and enjoy his isolation before everything got flipped topsy-turvy again.

Walking about aimlessly, as per the usual, he crossed a hallway that had a small part exposed to the dome; halfway through the sunny part, he found himself stopping and looking out over the sand; an aerial exit was nearby and let a draft in so his hair ruffled gently as he found he had the perfect vantage point to see the walkway Erin had collapsed just the day before. He remembered being rendered senseless by her damn sparkling again before getting his feet swept out from under him; then she'd taken off through the air, the wind whipping around him in a way that brought that lingering need to spread his own wings and feel the wind coarse through his hair just like this.

It had been too long since he'd been able to fly.

She tried to fight, to struggle in the whiteness that had taken over the black, to escape the pain that had returned, but she could barely move. Her body felt so strange, so small and light, and it was getitng smaller and lighter as the bandages flexed and crushed her exploding cells; Erin thought she'd become mush.

Somehow Ulquiorra had ended up on the sands of the dome, right where he sparred with Erin only two days prior. Without wind, the sand hadn't shifted and stll bore marks of their duel, including the crater his body had made. Remembering that actually brought an ache to his neck and shoulders; he hadn't been playing her then, he'd actually been unconscious a brief moment, which he couldn't believe, and had used it to his advantage. He'd never admit he'd been knocked out, especially by an Adjucha, no matter how powerful they were.

He had his pride still.

Erin had been restrained, crucified even, or at least that's how she felt. Breathing was impossible and she could swear the pressure had been building inside her from the constant crushing, becoming her own boom bubble as it were. There came a point where she wanted to just give up and let herself be smashed, but just as she started to think about that, something dark marred the whiteness. She couldn't lift her head to look around, and yet she could see it off a little ways from her, just at the edge of what she assumed was her vision. There was so much white she couldn't be sure.

:_So, you'd give up power for life?:_

Erin jerked, wondering where that voice was coming from.

:_If you're going to give up power, do it for something worth the trouble.:_

_Life is worth the trouble_, she thought-spoke back to whatever it was.

:_What life is there for those who feel nothing?:_

_Plenty. I feel._

:_You must have a heart to feel.:_

_Screw that. I have a heart. I'd have to to explain my behavior._

:_There's no two ways about this. Either you do or you don't.:_

_What difference does it make?_

_:When you figure it out, come and see me. I'll be waiting.:_

_What?_

The burning suddenly, somehow, skyrocketed and she screamed in her head, the whiteness seeming to grow brighter until she lost sense of all color, her eyes being seared by the light.

Avoiding the ghosts of Erin had been tricky, but he'd managed and kept his sanity over the three days it took for her Arrancar-ification to be complete. Now Ulquiorra was on his way back to the chamber to witness her rebirth; part of him, however miniscule it be, was still reeling from the last week of his existence. A lifetime without her and he was fine, two days travelling, three days with her and now three days without and nothing was exactly as it was before. he could kid himself all he wanted, but Erin's presence had been burned into his merely by her existing around him, and he couldn't explain why her over everyone else. That was the frustrating part. He'd never needed anyone before, never wanted anyone, never felt understood, was always alone or ignored.

Then he'd found someone like him and now he couldn't let it go.

He was so pathetic.

Trying to save his own face as he entered the chamber and took his position around the shrunken box that now contained a slight, human-like mummy, he justified himself with his curiosity at how much stronger she'd gotten. He needed to know if Aizen truly wasn't the strongest being anymore and if his Adjucha-his fraccion-changed anything about the pecking order in Las Noches.

Today he would find out.

Once the council of Espada and their underlings had convened, they waited for Aizen to retrieve the small device and approach the box, his manner once again under complete control. With his cocky smirk in place, he lifted the Hogyoku and murmured, "Time to awaken, little one," before placing it in the small slot in the box and activating it.

A surge of power cut through the vast, dark room, shattering the box in an explosion of white smoke. The new Arrancar gasped loudly, their hip-length, sky-hued hair fanning out around them as they slouched to the ground; a _wakizashi_ in a rose-colored sheath clattered to the floor just an arm's length away.

Female, of course, with a mask fragment covering her left eye and most of the upper-left side of her head, and a slender, pale body that had the faintest of sun-kissed, golden coloring, her hair blanketing her as she lay on the painfullycool ground. For several long seconds, the only sound was her breathing, but Aizen went to speak when he saw her sliding into a sitting position, her fingers tugging her _zanpakuto_ with her when they caught the little tiestring and setting it in her lap, her messy bangs hiding her uncovered eye, "Welcome. Please tell us your name, sister."

She looked up. Her eyes were completely black.

It couldn't be described as a blanket, or even as a sea, but the densest wave of spirit pressure any of them had ever felt suddenly exploded into the room, catching everyone off guard and driving most of them either to their knees or right onto their faces, the walls shaking and the foor beginning to crack. Aizen, Uno and-by sheer force of will-Ulquiorra managed to stay on their feet initially, the bearing down of the pressure was becoming too much bit-by-bit; they were about to release their own just to withstand the wave when it began to evaporate, bringing relief as it left.

The _shinigami_ with the God-complex watched as she blinked and the darkness receeded from her right eye, revealing it was even bluer than her hair, while her face was painted with shock-or terror, he couldn't tell-her breathing still deep and hard. He kept his guard up, his eyes narrowing as he waited for her to answer his previous statement, a strange weight making him feel slow.

In some awe, she reached up with one hand and ran her fingers through her hair, looked down at her body; she swept her flowing locks back over her shoulders, bunching them at her nape. "My name?" she asked in a voice that was medium-pitched and strong, chills beginning to descend on her skin. Her free hand gripped the handle of her blade and slowly pulled it out and she watched it gleam, the length equal to that of her elbow to her fingertips, sharpened on one side to the point of razor-fineness; she lifted it behind her neck, knowing she was being watched curiously by all the mysterious presences in the room. "My name is Erin Void,"-she jerked the blade upward and suddenly her gorgeous locks tumbled from her neck-"and I hate having long hair."

**UPDATE! for those of you who have read this far and followed along and given me motivation, due enjoy this link. yes, I drew that myself**

** art/Ulquiorra-Schiffer-Primera-Etapa-370851419?q=gallery%3Atsoyukiku&qo=0**


	8. Chapter 7

**Yay, long chapter! for those who haven't checked, I updated the last chapter a bit and included a link at the bottom, but I'll add it here too at the end for my lovelies 3 anyway, MOVING ON!**

Arrancar are born looking a certain way for a reason, and so blatantly changing that look was rather unusual, so naturally it only provoked Ulquiorra's curious mind even more about why Erin had lobbed all her hair off-though part of him had made the unsually smart-ass remark that she resembled a certain aggrivating Espada and so she wanted to minimalize association; the odds of finding two Arrancar with blue hair and blue eyes with enough power to make Espada ranking was statistically low and he'd heard some comments about if the two dominant personalities had been related to each other somehow. That was even more unlikely.

The chamber had cleared out relatively quickly after her reveal and Erin had been escorted to a side room to find suitable clothes, leaving him to wait alone.

Well, nearly.

Aizen appeared nearby and his face was impassive, but Ulquiorra could sense he had something important to say so he bowed and acknowledged the encounter smoothly. His lord's voice was somewhat clipped, as they both knew Erin could return any moment now. "Ulquiorra," the rogue _shinigami_ began, arms folded at the small of his back to make him seem fuller than he felt, "there is a reason I entrusted Erin's care to you." Cuatro's emerald eyes glinted. "You are the most loyal to my cause, and so bearing the most of my trust. I have my reasons for doing this as I did, and it is those reasons that have led me to leave you in charge of crafting her into the perfect weapon; powerful and unshaking in her loyalty. With her, my plan will be all but completed. Keep her under your thumb, Ulquiorra. She won't be your fraccion forever, her strength is bound to be noticed and suspicions will rise, but you can carve a lasting impression on her. I know you can."

Nodding, Ulquiorra began calculating what he was going to do with her, knowing Aizen was so unsettled by her very existence, listening for the sound of the door opening.

She took a flying leap and appeared before she was actually sensed,slipping quickly into view directly behind the soul reaper who maintained his composure perfectly. "Hey," she greeted plainly. "What're we talking about?"

"Ah, Erin, my dear," Aizen answered, looking over his shoulder at her. "There you are. I was merely explaining to Ulquiorra his job, now that you've utterly joined us as an Arrancar."

"What job is that?"

Ulquiorra chose to stay out of this conversation. Not having visible eyes as a Hollow had made it difficult to read her mood, but now that it was easy to see her thoughts on her face, the Espada had been quick to realize that her hate of _shinigami_ was much deeper than he'd first assumed-more so than what was considered normal for Hollows to feel. Her sky-hued eye burned with raging contempt as she looked at Aizen, not even bothering to hide her dislike; this is why he was in charge of her: Ulquiorra needed to curb her raging emotions, and who better to do so than one that has none? One whose very existence seethes with despair?

"For now," Sosuke explained in his mock-friendly way, gesturing slightly to Cuatro, "you are still his fraccion, to be trained until you've mastered your new abilities. Once he deems you proficcient, you'll be tested and ranked accordingly. I told you I have high expectations for you, my dear. Enjoy your new body."

He left in a blur and Ulquiorra noticed Erin's reaction to his sudden disappearance as well as her mood brightening considerably now that there weren't any soul reapers around anymore. This was the Erin he'd brought to Las Noches, not the dark force that had arrived only moments before. "We're going," he told her, turning on his heel and using _sonido_ to reach the door, looking over his shoulder at her.

At first, Erin was going to jump down and walk, but then she realized her training had evidently already started and he was testing her capacity. Sadly, Erin had no friggin' clue how to do jack shit as an Arrancar. Everything was strange. Her perception was off now that she was smaller and walking upright, her balanced was slightly skewed now that she didn't have four legs, a tail and two wings to equalize her center of gravity and feeling air on her face was extremely distracting; on the plus side, she'd gotten to keep her hyper senses, as she could still pick him out plain as day in his twin-tailcoat jacket and white _hakama_, not a terribly far cry from the Soul Society's _shihakusho_ uniforms.

And especially his eyes. They were like grassy beacons in the dark chamber.

_Just do as he did_, she thought, putting her weight on her toes. _Wait, how did he do it though?_ Having missed his movements while raging silently, she decided to try the obvious way first by jumping with as much strength as she could muster.

She landed two-thirds of the distance between them, stumbled, hit her knee and then face on the ground, got up and then trotted the rest of the way, pouting. "Well, that was pathetic."

"Indeed it was," he stated plainly, turning so his back was to her. "We shall work on that. Come."

"Now? Like, training now?"

"No, fool. You are not used to your body yet. We will walk."

That made more sense.

Walking seemed to be an activity Ulquiorra enjoyed, so Erin didn't complain even though they were silent once again. Her equilibrium was returning steadily so that she didn't sway or teeter or smack into things, but he wasn't making it any better for her with his stilleted comments; he was back to being cold and callous again, and she thought it might be because of how long they were apart.

"How long was I in that box, Ulquiorra?" the new Arrancar inquired as they approached a doorway that led to the dome, false sunlight overtaking the artificial slowly, putting her weight on her toes to see if maybe it helped her any.

"Three days," he answered immediately, hands in his pockets and attention forward.

_Just perfect to undo those three days where we actually interacted_, she thought sourly, feeling her ankle give out as well as her balance so that she skid into a wall.

Ulquiorra stopped and finally looked at her. "You are clumsy."

"That's not my fault!" she protested, smiling to herself now that she'd gotten his attention. "You try transitioning from having a tail sometime."

His expression seemed to harden slightly when he replied, "I did. It wasn't difficult." Looking might have been a mistake on his part, for now he couldn't look away.

Erin was only slightly shorter than he was now-a spacial factor he was still attuning himself to-but she was slender, not quite thin like he was, with a sunny color to her skin that stood out best when they were side-by-side. She had natural grace when she was still, her body relaxed and fluid in movement, much like when she was an Adjucha; her Grimmjow-blue hair was now cropped close to her head, though her bangs still fell over her face and under her mask fragment which covered her left eye and cheek bone, the void effect still holding true even now. At her eyes were her markings: lavender crescents at each corner and across her eyelid, so that when her eye was closed it looked like she had a downward-facing moon on her face; these were the transition in her color palette, as her _zanpakuto_ was tied horizontally to her lower back, the hilt on the right, its rose color a bright splotch against her white uniform.

Naturally, her fashion sense was strange as well; Erin had selected a vest-jacket with a long coattail that was cut to only cover her modest breasts, leaving her collar and belly totally exposed, though this didn't seem to bother her any, while she had a plain, long-sleeved choli underneath that turned up at the cuffs and buttoned like a dress shirt, hard slender hands held loftily at her sides. She wore no _hakama_, which somehow didn't surprise him, and instead vouched for a short skirt that hugged her hips and ended just above halfway down her thighs, and to finish it, knee-high boots with small heels that made the familiar _click-clack_ they were both accustomed to as she walked which served to ease his anxiety over her presence.

His sharp gaze raked her body from head-to-toe, his mind going blank, which is what he'd been trying to avoid. Erin knew he was zoning again so she waved her hand in front of his face until he snapped out of it, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "It would appear your Arrancar body still carries minute traces of your glamour."

"Great," she sighed, wondering why he'd gone arctic on her. "So I'm still a strobe light. That's wonderful."

Ulquiorra turned away again and stepped out into the dome, listening as she pushed off from the wall and followed.

Getting fed up with his pseudo mood-swings, she tried once again to start a conversation with him, hoping to find a glimmer of the Espada she'd spent two awesome days with-technically he wasn't any different from normal, she just didn't like that he seemed to be ignoring her existence now, when he'd been more than interested before. "If you had a tail, you shouldn't give me crap about it since you had to get used to it, too."

"As I said," he answered, keeping ahead of her, "it was not difficult for me."

"Got any tips then?"

He turned his head faintly away from her, his voice quieter than it had been. "That was long ago. I do not remember."

"Oh..."

He didn't say anything else, so she decided to give up on being subtle. "Is there a problem?"

"What do you mean by 'problem'?"

"You're acting strange."

"I am not. This is how I always am."

"Maybe to everyone else, but the Ulquiorra from three days ago was more attentive and willing to talk to me. Is there something wrong?"

Ulquiorra sighed softly. "No."

"Then talk to me, dammit!"

"I am."

She groaned, exhasperated. "Not like before. You ignore me whenever I don't say anything."

"Perhaps I just wish for silence at the moment."

Huffing, Erin balled her fists and decided to focus on regaining her balance, since he was bound to ignore her now even when she spoke, so she decided not to waste her breath.

She was upset and he knew this, but did not acknowledge her tantrum, as he was once again adjusting to having a fraccion following him around. Before, they'd had two days reaching the fortress for him to adjust without her incessant need for idle conversation, which made the transition to Espada and fraccion easier, but now he'd gotten desensitized to the arangement and needed to reboot, still trying to figure out what he was going to do now that he knew the truth of the situation and working out the realization he _did_ act different with her, even if only by a bit. Somehow, Erin had gotten under his defenses, and that was both good and bad for him; Ulquiorra Schiffer never had anyone close to him nor did he ever let anyone try, yet it had happened anyway, just when he'd discarded the idea it would.

Erin Void. What was she?

After a few hours of crossing the dome's sands, Erin had finally gotten her balance and was walking without swaying or leaning to stay on track, and her good mood radiated enough that even Ulquiorra had to acknowledge her now. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, "Why are you smiling?"

"Because," she mused back, happy with herself, "I finally got the hang of this walking on two legs thing."

He grunted and looked forward again. "Simpleton."

She'd gotten used to his name-calling a while ago; whenever someone exhibited behavior he couldn't understand or didn't like, he tended to tag them with a name related to said behavior-"trash" was usually his favorite, but was reserved solely for those whose power was significantly below his. With Erin, this was not the case, so he needed to come up with new names to express his confusion.

Ignoring his jab at her intelligence-she knew he didn't actually mean it anyway-the new Arrancar-woman used that intelligence without really meaning to, bringing an interesting idea to her head. "Hey. Question." She knew better than to ask "Can I ask you a question?" as he responded like a smartass more often than not whenever she did.

He grunted again, indicating she could continue.

"Considering the facts: I was a four-legged Hollow with a tail and I was having some serious equilibrium problems just now, but you said you had a tail, too, but it wasn't an issue... does that mean you were an upright-walking Menos and that's why it wasn't hard for you to adjust?"

Finally, Erin had surprised him; he had almost barely started missing that about her. Stopping suddenly-and with his fraccion right behind-Erin's lack of coordination made her run right into him although she'd tried to stop, her weight getting thrown forward. She _oof_ed, but Ulquiorra didn't even budge, his head inclined so that she could see right into his despairing, emerald eyes, even from behind. "Sorry," she murmured, taking a step back as he faced her, unfocusing his gaze in the hopes that doing so would help negate-or at least deaden-her distracting effect.

"You are right," he began, remembering that she wasn't as dense as most others around him. "I did walk upright, even as a Hollow. My tail was not used to stabilize my stride, as yours was. As well as a weapon, my tail was necessary only for retaining my high-speed aerial maneuverability, as I did not find myself needing the ground often. Therefore, losing it to Arrancar-ification did not impeed my balance as much as it has you."

His eyes focused in the seconds between his finished explaination and his attempt to turn away, and Ulquiorra grudgingly managed to get a good look at her face for the first time, his mind only half-registering the curiosity in her gaze. The Hollow mask fragment over her eye actually wrapped its way around part of her head as well, three long barbs growing back from it, tracing the place where the shell of her ear would be, the front half arching downward just alongside her nose; along with her eyes, Cuatro noticed her lips had markings as well, the upper a rosey crimson much like his own was black, while her lower was merely lined with it, making it an obvious statement that she had full lips-not that he noticed anyway; his mind had cut out again, his gaze slowly moving from head-to-toe.

Erin touched her lower lip thoughtfully, wondering why he hadn't mentioned he was a flying Hollow before. Then she remembered he had a don't-ask-don't-tell policy, and as the subject had never come up before, he hadn't felt inclined to mention anything. Tricky bastard. "What an interesting coincidence," she murmured, hoping he'd ask, but he only continued to stare at her. "Ulquiorra...? Ulqui-oh, for the love of God."

With out bothering to think it through, Erin lifted her hand and poked him between the eyes to snap him out of it, and she shouldn't have been surprised when his hand flashed up and circled her wrist with blinding speed, his grip firmer than usual. "What are you doing?"

"Maybe we should get out of the dome," she said, finding it ridiculous that he could be so easily distracted while it had taken Grimmjow several minutes to show signs of spacing off. The Arrancar wondered if it had to do with intelligence: that smarter people were more likely to be hypnotized because they paid closer attention. In which case, it only reinforced that Grimmjow was a moron.

A moron with a bad temper.

"Clearly you can't think straight with the light on me, so let's just get back to your wing before we cause an accident."

She tugged her hand away and he let her, his palm warm from her strange level of body heat-much warmer than any Hollow or Arrancar he'd encountered-nodding and wanting to get her out of his peripheral vision before he lost his train of thought again. But when they started walking again, she remained in a position that, while still outside his actual range of sight, would make it too easy to catch a glimpse if he didn't keep forward; normally that wasn't difficult, but now Ulquiorra found himself fighting _not_ to turn his focus on his fraccion as she practiced with different strides and forms of locomotion, even going so far as to linger behind several steps to try skipping before catching her toes on the back of her other heel and plastering herself to the ground. The fact he wanted to look at her so badly it was distracting didn't imporve his mood any and it certainly didn't make working through his questions any easier, because if he slipped his thoughts would crash but focusing meant he wouldn't be able to put some of the humming nuisances to rest until the night hours, and that would just bother him.

What was Erin Void? A complication. That's what.

"You will be sleeping in your own room from now on," he suddenly said as they entered the lower floor of his wing that came directly off the dome, having decided that before he could get used to her constant presence, he needed more time to settle his mind and as much away from her as possible to do so.

"I figured," she sighed.

He thought she'd protest.

"After all, we aren't like that, you only have one bed and I doubt the window is as comfy now as it was then. Besides, I know where you are so I'll be fine."

"Good that you understand."

She folded her arms behind her back. "Well, guys need their personal space and it's painfully obvious you aren't used to having someone in yours constantly."

"Being male has nothing to do with space. I have told you, gender makes no difference for Hollows."

Erin grinned; she'd gotten him, finally. "Ah, but we aren't Hollows, are we? We're Arrancar, both of us now, and that's closer to _shinigami_ than normal Hollows, and they differentiate-"

"We are not _shinigami_," he cut it, some of his spirit pressure leaking out as his temper flared-an incredibly rare and difficult thing to accomplish.

Erin instinctively countered with her own to keep her from suffering the side-effects of his _reiatsu_, biting the inside of her lip as she tried to make sense of what had just happened and not liking his behavior. "Christ. Don't be so touchy. It's the truth and you know it." She huffed. "Granted, we aren't soul reapers-_thank God_-and I never said we were. I merely pointed out that we're more like them than your average Hollow, our abilities to reason and sympathize much greater than theirs. We're Arrancar. We're stronger than any stupid _shinigami_ anyway."

His temper abated. "Except for lord Aizen."

Erin tipped her head side-to-side. "Eeehhh... don't even know how strong he is in the first place. Maybe. He'd have to be to control so many of us, so maybe he is stronger. But regardless, that's all I meant. So biology might apply because of that reason."

"Impossible." He wanted her quiet. "Interractions between male and female beings is a direct result of the 'heart' influencing the soul. Even as Arrancar, we have no hearts to speak of-physically or emotionally-therefore, any feelings, needs or urges you feel in regard to sex-based exchanges is merely your mind fooling you into believing it matters. It does not. You are not human and nor am I."

Erin stopped dead, feeling like he'd just slapped her in the face, while he continued to walk, both of them knowing she could find her way on her own when she pleased. Usually anger would flare up in direct proportion to how wounded her pride was, but this time she only stood there, watching his retreating back and thinking to herself,

_Why do you cry, Ulquiorra? Why do tears fall down your cheeks even though you don't feel sad?_

She believed her feelings were real, not a product of her mind trying to fool her. How was she going to convince him of that, though? Ulquiorra Schiffer was notoriously difficult to reason with when it came to his personal beliefs. She felt things, things no one understood. How could she be sure?

_Why do you cry?_

Erin didn't see Ulquiorra the rest of the day, which suited her just fine-her anger had been delayed by shock and tempered by sympathy-and she lay in her bedroom in a silk robe one of the unranked Arrancar had brought for her, along with a few changes of clothes for the next couple of days that she'd hung up despite wanting to go give her Espada a piece of her mind and never getting around to it. With her arms behind her head, Erin stared at her ceiling with a scowl, trying to get her mind off of the grouchy Numero next door; she had one leg propped up on her other knee, kicking it irritably as she worked through her aggrivation slowly.

The silence was even more deafening than ever, now that all the voices in her mind had been erradicated. Getting distracted was always easy for her because of the constant screaming in the very depths of her consciouness ruining her concentration, and at first it was so quiet it was loud; her first moments free of the the Hogyoku's spell had been mind-numbing. _Speaking of which_, she suddenly thought, her leg going still, _could that be what had been talking to me?_

She shook her head. _It's a bauble. A bauble with a shit-fucking-ton of power._

"Screw this." The light panel for her room was located similarly to Ulquiorra's-left of the bed and up a bit, a smooth, slightly raised surface against the rough wall-and easy to reach after rolling over; her fingers tapped it and her room was plunged into darkness, only the moonlight in the high windows pouring in and breaking the shadows' hold.

The nightmare had only just begun when Erin was jerked awake by a strange sensation: there was a pounding in her chest that made her think, _This must be what a pounding heart feels like_, before wondering how it could be when she didn't have a heart-literally, she didn't. The Hollow holes located in specific parts of an Arrancar's body normally eliminated any organs in that area, though sometimes they merely altered the anatomy itself, like in Grimmjow's case where he could eat despite having a hole where his stomach was. For her, she physically had no heart she knew of, as her Hollow hole was located on her chest, directly between her breasts, so if she did have one, it was in the wrong place.

Either way, her chest was pounding and she didn't know why, only that she felt the need to get up and exit her room, following some instinctive tug that took her sleep-addled self up the hallway right to the room she didn't want to be in. Erin opened the door and stepped into the dark room before she was finally awake enough to realize where she was and why.

Ulquiorra tossed on his bed, caught in the thralls of another nightmare; she could smell his fearful sweat from the doorway and her skin registered a change in temperature that sourced from his body, telling her the story without her even knowing the words. Most Hollows wouldn't give a damn either way if one of their own were having sleeping troubles, but not Erin. She _needed_ to go over to him, even if he'd upset her earlier, because she didn't want to see him this way, helpless against the emptiness that plagued her own subconscious. It was instinct.

Head jerking, his chest spasmed up and she heard him groan, his hands clenching the sheets, and it made her hurt inside to hear. Erin went over to his bedside quickly, hearing the door swing shut softly so that moonlight was the only thing by which to guide her, and sat precariously on the edge, her hands moving to cup his clammy face as she leaned over him and whispered, "Ulquiorra... wake up..." trying to snap him out of it and keep him from thrashing. "Ulquiorra, it's only a dream. Wake up."

Erin leaned so close, they could've touched foreheads if he moved even a little, but she had hold of his head so he couldn't hurt himself. "Ulquiorra," she said a little louder, forgetting her minute grudge against him, "come back. It's a nightmare. Come back to me. Please."

His eyes snapped open and his hand closed around her throat.

**okay, linky-link, just as promised. and yes, I drew that, haha.**

** art/Ulquiorra-Schiffer-Primera-Etapa-370851419?q=gallery%3Atsoyukiku&qo=0**


	9. Chapter 8

**short chapter, nya**

Ulquiorra was trapped in darkness again. Darkness was his ally, he'd been born into a world of endless night, and yet this was different. It wasn't nightfall or a lack of light that robed him only of his sense of perception; no, this was the physical manifestation of isolation, a deprivation of all senses and all feelings of being. That is what he feared. Not that he would admit it, and not that his pride would let him degrade himself by interracting with lower beings, but he feared being alone. The time he'd spent in self-induced isolation had been a terrifying mistake, and he'd been grateful to Aizen for freeing him from it.

But that didn't stop the here and now. Trapped as he was, there was no escape in sight. He felt a lunging sensation, as if there were no floor so he was continuously falling without actually falling. So complete was this darkness and so used to it as he was, even the faintest of changes would have been immediately noticable, so when a voice penetrated the blackness he felt it quiver right down to his core.

It was quiet, and he couldn't make out the words, but it was a voice, and he'd never heard a voice in these dreams before. After all, its supposed to be total isolation. When it faded, he found himself straining to catch more of it, his reduced state of anxiety quieting as he concentrated on something other than the void around him. For a second, he thought maybe he'd finally gone insane when there was nothing more and the darkness began to creep in again.

"Ulquiorra."

He started, turning in a circle.

_That voice._

"It's only a dream. Wake up."

_Erin?_

Why would she be in his dreams? No, she wasn't, she was calling him from the waking realm, bringing him from his horror. It was definitely her voice cutting into the nightmare, fracturing the darkness until it started to turn grey. Ulquiorra tried to call out to her, to ask her to keep talking, but his own voice was robbed from him; his mouth moved but nothing came out.

"Ulquiorra, come back. It's a nightmare."

Yes, he knew it was a nightmare, but he found he couldn't reprimand her obviousness.

The falling sensation stopped and in its place came heat across his face, as if something warm were pressed on his cheeks; he could smell something sweet now, like sugar, which he found pleasing despite not being fond of sweet things himself. At his back, the grey began to brighten even more, signifying the end of his nightmare. Turning toward it, he let the white wash over him to one last sound.

"Come back to me. Please."

Being thrust back into his body, which constituted slight disorientation, with the dream snapping away so he only felt the fear that had been tumbling through his being left him on autopilot, and when his eyes opened and found a looming shadow, he reacted the way anyone trained to fight would when faced with a sudden and unknown adversary: his hand came up and went for a vulnerable spot. The figure gagged as he clamped down on their neck and sat up, pushing them into the mattress hard as his sense came trickling back.

Their skin was warm and soft under his palm, like silk even, but the wheezing breathing interrupted the sensation with fingers clawing at his hand; his eyes focused in the darkness at last and he saw who it was he had in a choke hold.

"Erin," he said simply, releasing her throat and hearing her gasp sharply, her chest rising and falling quickly as she sat up and rubbed the sore, red ring that was beginning to form on her neck.

"Ulquiorra," she said just as pointedly, unable to find it in herself to be angry about the violent wake up at the moment. "Are you alright?"

"Why are you in my room."

This guy was gifted in making questions sound like commands and it took her some training to be able to differentiate commands, questions, rhetorical remarks and his sarcasm apart given he had very little for vocal or facial variety, but she was learning quickly since she enjoyed listening to his voice.

"I woke up and came here without meaning to," she said, seeing no reason to lie.

"Why." Compsure was encasing him smoothly as sleep slipped away, saving his self-oriented frustration for when he would be alone to curse himself for being tricked into feeling something that wasn't there.

Erin touched her lips and he found himself following the gesture rather than keeping his eyes on hers, seeing how they were slightly parted as she considered her answer. "Well," she drawled softly, her brow furrowing, "that I'm not sure about that exactly, but considering the circumstances, I think it has to do with your nightmare."

He was about to deny it-reflex-when she shot him a look.

"Don't lie. I saw everything."

His jaw ticked, his composure quivering.

"I've woken up to your nightmares before. So it doesn't surprise me."

"Even so," he began to reason, feeling more like himself by the minute, "you were present at the time. Sensory preception remains active, even while sleeping, to guard against surprise dangers. You should not have woken up from down the hall."

"But I did," she argued, folding her arms.

He noticed their little skirmish had disturbed the order of her nightwear and left a few centimeters bare from collar to naval, her Hollow hold cutting a dark void between her breasts, which looked supple but not overbearing like Halibel's-though it was a point of fact now that no one could be considered well-endowed after she emerged, but Erin wasn't lacking like Lilinette or Loly either. It fit her build, so to say. With his gaze riveted on this exposed flesh, he went on to ask, "Then what would compel you? I was no where near you and you were sleeping, weren't you?"

Erin hadn't noticed where his line of sight was, her forearms folding under her chest; and unconscious reaction to frame her breasts. "I must've sensed you, because I was sound asleep." He wanted to point out that made no sense when she made a sound. "Wait, not quite. I was actually entering a nightmare of my own, and REM sleep is one of the deepest stages but also easier to come out of than Stage Three when disturbed. So saying, I should not have woken up unless something was around and the nightmare hadn't actually started yet so it's not like I scared myself awake. Therefore, I had to have sensed you, even from down the hall, in order to wake up like I did."

He had nothing to say to that. This is one of the things he was constantly impressed by regarding Erin: she didn't fight him with feelings-unless she was mad-or nonsense like Grimmjow or Nnoitora; no, Erin argued with logic, and having his wits tested was both a wonderful change of pace and an aggrivating turn of events since he was used to winning with his own logic. Apparently he doesn't know you can't win an argument against a woman no matter what, but he's a quick learner. That being said, he couldn't come up with anything against she, because she was right and too sharp for him to manipulate with questions.

He was lost in reason, and he didn't have a map.

Erin returned to her room when he asked-demanded-to be left alone and she felt upset; not for the brush off, but for him. He'd claimed emotions were folly, that they were a trick of the mind, yet he wasn't making himself feel fear when he dreamed. He was too proud to admit he felt when he slept, and she knew pride could be a dangerous insulator to reason. But how did she convince the most intelligent of the Arrancar when he had a habit of going arctic when his beliefs were challenged?

_"I only believe what I see and touch, and emotions are not things, therefore I can neither see nor touch them. If it cannot be seen by these eyes or felt by these hands, it does not exist."_

That's why she argued.

_"I am despair incarnate. I exist. Therefore, only despair is true. The emptiness of existence, the pointlessness of it, is what I am. I have never been given reason to feel anything else, never been given proof it is possible, yet even I cannot deny this crush void within myself. Since it is me, it is physical, and therefore can be seen, felt and heard. Depsair is the only true emotion. All else is lies born of the mind."_

She didn't know how she'd do it, but Erin liked a challenge. Not so much the draft, though. _What the crap is with the chill?_ Looking down, she noticed her robe was open. _Oh._ Heat washed her cheeks. _I hope he didn't notice. But at least it was only my stomach._

"He better like what he sees. I have a sexy stomach."


	10. Chapter 9

**okay, wow, this took longer than it needed to... okay, well, um, as said one my last update for Fangs, with the ending of the school year, and due to a lack of net at my current residence, my updates are going to be less frequent than any of us wish. the stories will still progress, naturally, but we'll all have to be more patient, as I have some other projects in the works that are interfering with my ability to write, not to mention I've reached that point with this story where I know the details, but keeping them in the proper order is driving my insane. Ulquiorra, you are a frustrating son-of-a-bitch but I still love you so I won't give up, even if it kills me.**

**Anyway, MOVING ON!**

Morning played out fairly normal, Erin swearing at the sudden flash-bang she received, and she met Ulquiorra just outside his room, rubbing her free eye and noticing the solemn glare in his gaze that denoted "no talking about last night". She nodded absently and yawned as he turned on his heel and began to walk away, speaking one word the entire trip into the dome.

"Come."

This time, Erin had expected him to go tundra. She was starting to understand his behavior bit-by-bit, as she was naturally observant due to the sharpness of her senses, and figuring out this so-called "emotionless" Espada was becoming a little easier by the day. Remarkably, this hot-tempered Arrancar had immense patience, which clashed with her nature at being as volatile as her _reiatsu_; a paradox for which she had no explanation.

Being exposed to another was not something Ulquiorra was accustomed to. Erin was beginning to understand this part of him and felt for him, knowing full-well the regrettable nature of growing accustomed to self-reliance and isolation, how frightening and painful it was, how never-ending it seemed. Maybe that's why she seemed so in-tune with him. They vibrated on the same frequency.

The idea made her smile, her focus on her feet so she wouldn't disturb her Espada with pointless questions despite not liking the silence. Ulquiorra, having looked over his shoulder without intention, noticed her expression and began studying it, wondering why she was looking that way and what she could be thinking of. Expression was something he was used to seeing on others, but of course he didn't believe any of the Arrancar could actually _feel_ whatever it was that was making said expression; his badmouthing of feeling didn't extend to _shinigami_ or people, as he knew feelings were _real_, so to specify his beliefs, due to the circumstances surrounding the creation of a Hollow, he only believed those fallen souls and the Arrancar products of them were the ones who couldn't feel much of anything truly. Naturally, he didn't bother to explain to Erin, as he was in one of his "moods" again and saw no reason to.

Erin's head began to lift and he forced himself to look forward before she caught him staring yet again, cursing her glamour and its sneaky effectiveness on his psyche. Her enhanced peripheral vision allowed her to catch the faint contraction of his neck muscles and the shifting of his hair as he turned, drawing a smirk across her face. Erin knew he'd been looking at her. How could she _not_ feel those bright, emerald eyes whenever his impressive attention was on her? Every twitch of his body, his hair, his clothes, gave her something to notice and note, the sharp, clean scent of his skin breaking the dusty, contained odor of the dome like a knife. Everything about the Cuarto Espada was a sensory shock to her, a novelty, a refreshment. To someone whose five senses were so keen, finding stimulating variations that weren't annoying or painful was rare, and she enjoyed it as much as she could every chance she was around him.

They were heading to the same spot they always went, out in the far side of the dome's desert floor, away from the chances of being disturbed by the others. Especially Grimmjow. As he preferred taking his time, Ulquiorra always walked, taking the time to think to himself; Erin used it to observe. Unlike her still-kind-of-awkward stride, he moved with precise grace, his body held at a rigid slouch which would fool anyone with less perception into thinking he was relaxed, but Erin could see the stress etched into his muscles, see the tension in his frame as he walked; his disturbed nights and unprecedented exposure were stressing him out, and that could be bad for his health later on if nothing was done to center his inner turmoil.

Concerned for her Espada's well-being, Erin trotted up a few steps to draw closer to him and closed her eyes, relying on her hearing and her "sixth sense" to keep up with him, and doing the one thing that always helped ease her nerves when she was bearing the brunt of survival.

She began to sing softly.

_"Dig up her bones but leave her soul alone... boy, with a broken soul, heart with a gaping hole... dark twisted fantasy, turned to reality, kissing death and losing my breath..."_

Having not expected her to start in like that, Ulquiorra almost, _almost_ faltered in his steps, her voice swirling around him on the air like a breeze of summer whistling over a field. His brooding thoughts came to a crashing halt and he went on autopilot, unconsciously navigating their way across the dome as he focused on every curling strain of melody, feeling as if her song were pushing away his tension merely by being heard. There is no way he'd admit it in direct meaning, but he maybe, sort-of _liked_ Erin's voice, and that was why he actually didn't mind when she spoke to him, even if he wasn't keen on conversation at the time. Hearing her speak was comforting, like when she tore him from that nightmare with nothing more than words and a gentle touch, and knowing she was there kept the recurring aftershocks at bay; whenever she wasn't close at hand, he found himself looking for her, and though he was disappointed in himself for gazing at an empty window sill like a lost puppy looking for someone to adopt it, he knew for certain it was only because she'd slept there once, and her very presence provided a kind of sanctuary for him from the ever-presence emptiness around him, be it self-imposed or not.

"_Midnight hours, cobble street passages, forgotten savages... forgotten savages..._"

She was close. It was hard to miss the oddly intense heat that radiated off of her like a furnace in winter-heat that surpassed even Grimmjow's typical temperature, and his was one of the warmest among the Arrancar, warmth already being rare for a Hollow to begin with-and with it came her clean, warm scent like freshly-washed linens. Interestingly enough, the smell of fresh clothes was something he personally enjoyed, being a very tidy person and all, and the fact she carried such a pleasing scent with her made ignoring her for the sake of ignoring her glamour even more frustrating and difficult than it already was. Erin Void was one, giant sensory overload for him and he had yet to figure out if that was good or bad for him, though he wasn't really complaining.

"_Dig up her bones but leave her soul alone... let her find a way to a better place... broken dreams and silent screams, empty churches and soulless curses... we found a way to escape the day... dig up her bones but leave her soul alone... lost in the pages of self-made cages, life slips away and the ghosts come to play... these are hard times... these are hard time for dreamers... and love-lost believers..."_

She sang to him until they arrived at their destination, and for a moment he contemplated-in a manner very unlike himself-playing the absent-minded one and continuing to walk just to see if she'd continue singing, but then he thought to himself, _Provoking or asking for such things found enjoyable ruins the novelty and quality of the event. If I ask or make her continue it will grow routine and I do not wish to grow bored of it._ Then he wondered why it mattered if he got bored of her songs or not.

Damn.

Of course, she drew to a close as they come to a stop and noted with pleasure that his body was less rigid now, though he still wasn't looking at her directly; more at the edges of his peripheral so he could acknowledge her but not get caught in her so-called glamour. Well, at least he was acknowledging her, meaning the tundra was thawing finally.

"We will begin here," he told her, not betraying any change of mood or thought from the last few days. "I will be measuring your capacity for combat now that you are an Arrancar. Do not disappoint me."

Erin was just about to ask what he meant by "testing her capacity" when he vanished from her sight and her sensors. She blanched. "Shit."

Suddenly, with barely a thought on her part, Erin's _pesquisa_ radiated out and she found him the millisecond before his attack landed, allowing her to bring her right forearm up beside her head and block his knife-hand chop, his body angled away from her as he felt a forceful jolt work its way up his arm.

"Good," he mused, exerting more force against her and feeling her meet it equally. "Why do you not force me back?"

"Because," she said back, half her mind working on why her senses were reacting without her needing to focus and half trying not to give in to him.

"If you do not fight seriously, I will hurt you." As a point, he pivoted forward and swung his leg, aiming for her shoulders.

Erin's ponder-bubble popped and she felt his kick connect and shove her forward; she let out more in surprise than in pain, but her instincts twisted her mid-fall and her hand shot out, latching onto his forearm and dragging him down with her. It took hardly a second and he wasn't expecting her reflexes to be so much quicker without refinement, plus she was actually heavier than she looked-a direct result of her muscles being condensed, increasing her strength while minimizing her size-so he tumbled right along with her.

One can imagine a special kind of situation coming out of this, but this is Ulquiorra and Erin. It doesn't work that way.

Curving herself into a ball, Erin planted her feet on Ulquiorra's stomach and rolled backwards, kicking him over her head and turning it into a full summersault, pinning him to the ground and sitting on him, folding her arms over her chest. "Nice try," she chided, quirking her brow.

"You're reaction time is much better," he said. "But your focus is still lacking."

"You should remember how disorienting it is suddenly having your mind quiet enough to be able to focus in the first place."

He grunted, before pushing off with his right arm and rolling them, bracing his forearm against her neck and pinning one of her wrists with his left hand, bearing down on her while she pushed back on his elbow with her free palm. "I will not hesitate to strike lethally if you do not take this seriously."

"And here," Erin gasped sarcastically, trying to wiggle free, "I thought... you were holding back..." She managed to take a deep breath after getting him off of her windpipe enough and her _reiatsu _began to climb as she pulled it into her chest.

Ulquiorra's _pesquisa_ sent a warning jolt through his body and he leaped upward, detaching himself from her just as she opened her mouth and let out a booming bark laced with her spirit pressure, the shockwave bypassing him as he dodged mid-air, the sonar vibrations quivering him down to his bones. _So that's it,_ he pondered, freezing in place and turning his attention on her as she got up from the sand. _She does not have the _standard_ assortment of attacks, but that is most certainly a _bala_, though a rather unusual one. It's sound-based, reacting to her voice. That's what collapsed the walkway._

Well, that was one mystery solved.

Erin leaped at him, rocketing from the ground with her fist hooked back, aiming at his face with all intentions of paying him back for the roll-over, but naturally he grabbed her as she threw it and blocked her other arm before she could get her hand close enough to grab onto him; Erin feignted a head butt and he reared back as she'd expected, so she pivoted and grabbed his sleeves, hauling him over her back with the intent to toss him to the ground, though she knew she wouldn't be able to pull that stunt on him twice.

She didn't.

Ulquiorra stopped in the air after doing a flip and elbowed her in the neck; Erin gagged but she'd known he'd attack her, so instead of dodging she used the movement to swing backwards and bring her leg up, catching him in the side. The Cuarto Espada didn't budge, but he did clamp down on her leg to repress her motion, prepared to swing her around when she suddenly jumped and twisted; the curvature of her body would not have been natural from any other Arrancar, but her flexibility had carried over along with her senses and allowed her to dislocate her joints while using her spirit pressure to maintain her structure-like Renji's _bankai_-giving her a range of maneuverability greater than that of any other. So saying, she caught him on his mask fragment just enough to make him release his hold on her, letting her right herself for his retaliation.

Instead of attacking, he merely turned toward her and commented, "It seems you've already mastered how to suspend yourself in the air."

"Huh?" Erin looked at her feet and noticed for the first time they were over twenty feet in the air and she was standing. "Oh, hey, look at that."

"Many of the necessary skills you lack are instinctive to aquire. It just appears that when you try, you fail."

She quirked her brow at him and grumbled, "Thanks," before pondering whether to unsheath her _zanpakuto_ or not. "Hey, just out of curiosity," she began, noting the way his hand had gone to rest on the hilt of Murcielago rather than back into his pockets-he was still prepared to fight, and not hand-to-hand anymore, "will we be needing me to fight in my _resureccion_ anytime?"

"Eventually. But not when your combat prowess is lacking at best."

She gave him the finger without really thinking about it.

Ulquiorra's fingers flexed on his hilt and his gaze narrow ever-so-slightly. "You are as vulgar as that idiot, Grimmjow."

"You're pissing me off. I don't appreciate being talked down to."

He scoffed. "When you refuse to fight to your utmost capacity, expect to be judged as such."

She crossed her arms. "Oh, so you _want_ me to wail on you? Is that it?"

"Your overconfident attitude ensures that will not happen."

"Pf. Fine. Let's see who beats on who when I decide I want to hurt you."

"If you think you can."

Erin was already adjusting quite well to her new body and the precision with which she can now function with the voices dead and gone forever, freeing up places in her mind she'd never been able to utilize before. Everything was much easier for her now, and with Ulquiorra's attitude starting to really get to her, she decided to start using that little convenience to her advantage. Until now, she didn't want to hurt him because, by instinct, she knew she was stronger than he was by quite a bit-stronger than Uno, for certain-and she didn't want to accidentally injure him, though she knew by now he could regenerate instantly from most of her attacks. Therefore, the odds of rendering him a casualty are minimal.

_Reishi _coalescing with speed she'd only dreamed of before, Erin created three bubbles of power at three different altitudes around her Espada, seeing his flickering panic only milliseconds before he took off, dodging the pockets as they exploded quite forcefully. Three more appeared where he stopped, so he kicked away, jumping into the air.

Erin smirked.

Ulquiorra cracked his head on open air and dropped to the ground with a confused groan. _Her focus has increased exponentially_, he thought, seeing lights dancing in his eyes. _To think that she can now use the same speed as her playful assault to inflict solid damage while simultaneously compressing a wall to halt my retreat-_this_ is why lord Aizen was so distraught. I cannot blame him, if she has this much ability while so grossly under-trained._

Erin's smirk turned into a grin. "You hesitated!" she called, bringing him from his thoughts.

"And you failed to utilize it once again," he replied, rising from his prone position only to feel a kind of claustraphobic disturbance around him. Raising his hand, Ulquiorra reached out in front of him, only to find another solid wall only inches from his body on all sides; she'd caged him with walls while he'd been thinking, successfully using an opening so miniscule most couldn't detect his hesitation. "I stand corrected," he amended, somewhat grudgingly.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Release me."

"Why?"

"We are not finished and I cannot fight in this situation."

"Isn't that kind of the point of capturing someone?"

He sighed, jaw ticking; she was toying with him, and he did not like being toyed with. Never the one to have the temper, yet somehow unable to keep a lid on himself now, Ulquiorra's patience started to drain away rather quickly as Erin continued to taunt him from the safe side of her construct, tapping at the ethereal walls, hoping to provoke him.

It was working.

"You find overt satisfaction in being able to combat such pathetic skills," he said in a way that made the new Arrancar hesitate, something jolting through her body akin to fear; Ulquiorra was angry. Turning, his piercing emerald gaze tore into her turquoise orbs, an unfamiliar intensity boring into her spirit as she tried to comprehend that Ulquiorra was finally showing way-more-than-minute feelings-though she wasn't much a fan of the idea he was pissed. Especially because of her.

Oh, well, beggars can't be choosers.

"Very well," he went on, the very air seeming to quiver around him. "Since you are more than capable of handling yourself, we'll move on to something more suited to your skill level."

Erin gulped.

Ulquiorra's _reiatsu_ flared sharply, shattering her box and blowing her back several feet as he drew Murcielago from its sheath with slow deliberation, pausing as the tip came free before making a blinding sweep with his arm and causing all the sand beside him to erupt, leaving a deep gash in the soft ground.

She took a small step back, realizing two things in the fraction of a second between that motion and his attack: For one, she was right, Ulquiorra had emotions somewhere under that pallid denial. For another, she was overtly screwed.

He _had_ been holding back the entire time.

Gin Ichimaru walked aimlessly around the outer pathways of the main building where he and his comrades lived, humming tunelessly behind the evil mastermind himself. Aizen was busy mulling over his calculations regarding Erin when a flicker off across the bright sands made him and his lieutenant pause for a moment. It had a feeling of familiarity to it, underscored by rage remnisient in its intensity to someone else, and it made his brows knit. He'd never felt this before.

"What was that?" he wondered aloud, sensing Gin pause behind him. "Grimmjow is still in recovery, isn't he, Gin?"

"Yup," the silver-hair fox replied, snickering to himself. "That wasn't Grimm."

"That pressure was angry, just like his. What could...?"

Gin mused, "Oh, that?" and took a glance out at the sands. "Only felt it once myself, but I know who that is, and it ain't Yammy."

Although it wasn't a surprise Gin might know something from experience he himself didn't, as the ex-Third Company captain spent more time crossing the Garganta to check on progress than he could, he still was certain what it could be, as remaining updated was a habit of his he needed to retain control. "Explain."

Gin shrugged. "Nothing much."

"Oh?"

"Yup."

"What is it, Gin?"

"Ulqui's angry."


End file.
